‘Perhaps not,’ he said. ‘If we get there first.’
‘We shall join the navy,’ Varvara said. ‘We have decided this. The radio said that Greek naval vessels are already assisting the British and that they will head for Alexandria to lay alongside your ships. They will be glad of us, I think.’
‘Why didn’t you use the caique?’ Cotton asked. ‘You’d be less crowded.’
Varvara gave him a troubled smile. ‘The Germans have posted a notice in the village that there must be no movement of boats and there’s a sentry on the harbour wall. We had to leave in ones and twos.’ He made a despairing gesture. ‘There’s also a naval launch which has arrived from Kalani to make sure the order’s carried out. It’s lying off Cape Kastamanitsa with two caiques. We saw them as we came over the hill. They’re full of troops. They came from Kalani.’
‘What for?’
‘For the invasion of Crete. What else? They’re going to Isfos further south. They’re grouping there. They’re leaving tomorrow morning.’
‘This launch you saw.’ Cotton gestured. ‘What’s it like?’
‘It looks fast.’
‘Fast as this?’
‘Perhaps. It also has a big gun on the stern.’
Cotton frowned and gestured at Bisset. ‘Biss, get up the hill. Take the binoculars and stay where you can see the road. Come back if you see the Germans coming. If they do, we’ll have to shove off and chance it. Come down before dark.’
In his heart he knew his decision to wait until dark was also influenced by the hope that Annoula would return. There’d been no sign of her since she’d disappeared in Ay Yithion and he’d been hoping all afternoon that she’d decide to throw in her lot with young Varvara and join them.
His eyes turned towards the slope. There was no sign of life beyond the donkey, which they’d set free, grazing quietly halfway up the hill; nothing but the purple-brown slopes burned by the sun.
He found Varvara alongside him. ‘Did you see Annoula?’ he asked.
Varvara shook his head. ‘Perhaps she will come, Kapetáne.’
As Cotton moved towards the foredeck, restless, watching the ropes, checking that everything was ready for departure, Kitcat placed the Lewises on their stands, and the pans of ammunition over the breeches. The 20mm was on the stern mounting, a drum in position, the remaining drums on the deck below ready to be handed up. Inside the engine room he could hear the clink of Docherty’s tools and Docherty himself whistling with a surprising cheerfulness that lifted shrilly over the deep thudding of guns to the north.
Kitcat was explaining the working of one of the Lewises to Gully who was staring at it, bewildered.
‘Fed by a circular magazine,’ Kitcat was saying. This one. It’s fixed horizontally over the breech mechanism and holds forty-seven rounds.’
He indicated which was the breech and Gully frowned. Cotton knew how he felt. When he’d first made the acquaintance of a machine-gun it had been nothing but a meaningless conglomeration of oddly shaped bits of shiny steel.
‘Perhaps you’d better just pull the goddam trigger,’ Kitcat said in disgust, ‘and hope for the best.’
He removed the magazine and stood alongside Cotton, listening. The air seemed full of the sound of guns and the lower note of aircraft. It seemed to Cotton to make them more cut off. For days he’d been existing entirely on drilled-in discipline and the morale they’d shoved into him at Eastney, but it was beginning to wear a bit thin now. A man could live cut off from his friends only for so long, and they seemed to have been in the wilderness for ever.
Kitcat was watching him and he felt he had to say something.
‘Somebody’s copping it,’ he offered.
‘Navy.’
Cotton nodded, his head cocked, listening. ‘If they’re trying to lift the pongos off the mainland they’ll be getting it thick and heavy, because the Jerries have airfields within easy distance of the coast now. Think they might just know in Crete what we know?’
Kitcat sighed. ‘It’s always been my experience,’ he said, ‘that they don’t know a goddam thing about what’s coming till it drops on ’em.’
A stone clattered ashore and he swung round.
‘Somebody coming.’
Thinking it might be Bisset returning, Cotton called to Docherty to stand by, and Gully moved to the forward mooring rope.
But it wasn’t Bisset. Three figures were emerging from the scrub. It wasn’t possible to see who they were as they entered the fringe of trees but they saw the flash of coloured shirts and, as they came out of the trees, Cotton saw they were Chrysostomos Petrakis, and his two Companions, Xilouris and Cesarides, wearing blankets in rolls round their chests.
They stopped among the dusty rocks alongside the boat. ‘I am glad you have repaired it,’ Petrakis said.
Cotton scowled at him. ‘How did you know we’d repaired it?’
‘We have been watching.’
‘What difference does it make to you?’
Petrakis smiled. ‘We are sorry we have caused trouble, but whatever our ideals and whatever yours, we are both fighting the same enemy.’
‘It took you long enough to find out.’
‘Perhaps.’ Petrakis smiled again. ‘But it’s all over here now and we wish to go with you.’
Six
‘We may come aboard?’
Petrakis smiled and gestured towards Loukia’s foredeck. Cotton scowled. He disliked Petrakis and didn’t trust him, but he had to suppose that anybody who proposed joining in the fight against the Nazis would be welcomed in Egypt. The fact that he didn’t like him had nothing to do with it. If he’d looked through the army, navy and air force muster rolls, he’d doubtless have found plenty of men he wouldn’t like.
‘I thought you were going to stay here and fight,’ he said. Petrakis smiled and shrugged.
‘And what about that army you said you had?’
Petrakis gestured at Xilouris and Cesarides. ‘These two? Just these two?’
Petrakis shrugged again. ‘We may come aboard?’
Cotton turned to Kitcat. ‘I suppose they’d better,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Put ’em forrard and see they stay there. They’re not to come on deck.’
‘We’re not proposing to steal your boat,’ Petrakis said coldly.
‘I’m not going to give you a chance,’ Cotton snorted. ‘The women and kids are to stay below too,’ he went on. ‘And Kitcat—’ Cotton lowered his voice ‘—stick around that forrard hatch. Just keep an eye on those bastards. I wouldn’t put it past ’em to stir up trouble of some sort even now.’
Kitcat nodded and ushered Petrakis and the other two below. As they vanished, Cotton moved round the boat.
‘Think she’ll stand up to it?’ he asked Gully.
The carpenter was bending over the port Lewis, frowning. With the chance of success round the corner, he had recovered his aggressiveness. His new courage took the form of confidence and he straightened up and grinned. ‘If I do a job, son,’ he said, ‘it stays done. She’ll get you there if the engines keep turning.’
‘What about the holes?’
‘You’ll not get enough water through ’em to worry you. And they won’t leak much in less than ’alf a gale.’
In the engine room Docherty was bent over the starboard engine. ‘How’s it going?’
Docherty looked up. ‘They’ll be all right,’ he said.
The day seemed to drag through the last hours of the afternoon; the sun turned from piercing gold to bronze, and the shadows of the trees reached across the deck until they showed in the water at the far side. For the hundredth time Cotton looked at his watch, then at the two clumps of rock in the entrance to the bay, fixing in his mind exactly where they lay so that they could safely negotiate them in the dark. Finally he looked towards the hilltop for some sign of Bisset.
Nothing was moving and for something to do, he cleaned himself up, shaving for the first time in days, polishing his cap badge, trying to rub the spots of
f his trousers. He was a Royal Marine and it was his duty to look like one. He’d heard of the Marine colonel who’d acted as beachmaster at La Panne during the evacuation of Dunkirk; contriving to put on his best uniform to go aboard ship, he had made himself so smart the women doling out rations in the train to London had refused to supply him because they wouldn’t believe he’d just come across the Channel. Cotton understood what lay behind the gesture and thoroughly approved.
Gully appeared. ‘What are you polishing up for?’ he said.
Cotton couldn’t explain; he couldn’t have explained why the colonel at Dunkirk had put on his best uniform either, even though he understood. ‘They’re red-hot on polishing in the Marines,’ he said shortly.
Still nothing happened and he doggedly began to hum the Marines’ march, a little number called ‘Sarie Marais’ they’d picked up from the Boers in the South African War. Then he stopped dead as the Greek women started to sing, too; softly, perhaps to lull their children to sleep, a slight tuneless melody with a strange touch of the east, all half-notes that never quite arrived where they appeared to be going. Cotton guessed it was probably an inheritance from the days when Greece was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked Docherty.
Docherty looked up at him. Like Gully, despite himself he had been impressed by Cotton’s single-mindedness. They only needed luck now to make their escape and, though he could never have told him so, he knew as well as Bisset that it was entirely due to Cotton’s doggedness.
‘You’ve already asked me that,’ he pointed out. ‘About five times.’
Cotton managed a smile. ‘Bit on edge,’ he explained. ‘Bisset ought to be back soon.’
The Greek women’s song stopped and they started another, and this time it was more lively, and he could hear the voices of the men also joining in.
‘That lot sound cheerful,’ Cotton said.
‘More cheerful than I feel,’ Docherty said. ‘I feel like ten men. Nine dead and one with his foot in the grave. I’ll be glad when we’re away from here.’ He indicated one of the boat’s Mae West life-jackets hanging near the engine-room doorway. ‘Blown up ready,’ he said. ‘Only bit of air support we’ll get this trip.’ He paused. ‘I don’t suppose we could nip off a bit early, could we?’
Cotton shook his head. ‘With that armed launch off the cape, we haven’t a chance before dark.’
A little later, they heard the thumping sound from the north again. It seemed to shudder the air and sent shivers down their spines.
‘Luftwaffe after our ships,’ Docherty said. ‘I expect it’s Dunkirk all over again.’
There was a long silence, as though the heat weighed heavily on them all. From the shore they could hear the high rasping of crickets. The sea looked like pale silk but seemed as solid and unmoving as metal.
‘We’ll single up,’ Cotton suggested, itching to be off.
‘Not till we’ve started the engines,’ Docherty warned. ‘She’ll surge a bit. Leave ’em.’
Cotton nodded, seeing the sense. ‘Will they start?’ he asked.
‘Whatcha mean?’
‘The batteries. Will they do it?’
‘Once,’ Docherty said bluntly. ‘That’s all. They’re low and if they don’t do it first time, that’s it. We’re here for the duration.’
The silence continued. The Greeks in the forecastle had fallen silent and Cotton wondered if they were asleep. He slipped into the wheelhouse. The women and children seemed to be dozing in the stuffy heat but through the door he could see Petrakis sitting bolt upright, smoking, and Cotton noticed that the cigarette packet he held in his hand was the familiar duty-free navy issue.
He went back on deck, staring round him, waiting for dusk, praying it would hurry. He glanced up at the hill for Bisset, but the skyline was empty. Then he looked at the hilltop in the direction of Ay Yithion, hoping against hope he’d see Annoula. But again there was nothing except the bare brown-purple soil and the scrub and the clumps of cactus.
He wondered where she’d gone to. She’d been seeking Varvara but Varvara had missed her, and still she hadn’t come. He wondered if the Germans had found her and questioned her and, seeing her again in his mind’s eye as he’d seen her when Docherty had flung himself down on top of her, with her dress open at the throat and the white flesh of her shoulders and breast, the thought of the Germans touching her, perhaps beating her, using cigarettes on her skin to torture her, made his stomach heave.
How long his bitter thoughts occupied him, he didn’t know, but when he jerked to the present again he realised the sun had set and the high hills behind them were flinging shadows. There couldn’t be more than half an hour left before darkness arrived. Bisset should be on his way down at any moment.
His eyes flickered towards the direction of Ay Yithion again. There was still no sign of Annoula, and his fist thumped softly on the top of the battered wheelhouse in his frustrated anger.
He glanced towards the sea. It still looked surprisingly bright, covered now by a metallic sheen so that the deep delphinium blue had become paler, almost the colour of lead. There wasn’t a ripple on it and he knew that if they moved before dark they’d stick out like a sore thumb on its smooth surface.
‘Another half-hour,’ Docherty said, chewing at a matchstick. He looked worried and nervous.
‘Perhaps less.’ Cotton’s eyes moved again to the hill-tops looking for the girl and Bisset. He’d given up hope now that Annoula would ever return, and he realised suddenly that he’d missed her since she’d gone that morning. They’d never spoken much to each other but there’d always been a quiet sort of understanding between them and a lot that had gone unsaid.
‘Bisset!’ Kitcat, sitting in the wheelhouse, spoke suddenly and Cotton heard a faint shout above them. After a while, he saw Bisset scrambling down the slope, carrying the tommy-gun, the binoculars swinging in front of him. He looked in a hurry.
‘Stand by, Docherty,’ Cotton said. ‘Gully, take the stern! Kitcat, foredeck! We might have to leave in a hurry.’
The carpenter hurried down the narrow deck to the well, and Kitcat, dumping his tommy-gun by the winch, waited by the bow ropes.
Bisset was closer now, and they could see him pointing. He came scrambling through the trees, sliding down the last slope on his backside. As his feet thumped on deck, he looked round for Cotton.
‘Jerries are on their way,’ he panted.
‘Where are they?’
‘I’ve been watching them. They arrived some time ago.’ He grinned. ‘They found the equipment and the cap first and they’ve been mounting a full-scale attack on the farm. It was worth watching. They weren’t paratroopers this time but they did all the usual crawling along ditches and behind walls. When they found nothing, they stood around talking for a long time, then started searching. When they saw that SS car we dumped they did it all over again. I think they’re heading this way now. They’ll not be here yet, though. They can’t get their lorries to the top of the hill here so they’ll have to walk and they’ve a fair way to come.’
‘How long?’ Cotton asked.
Bisset glanced up the slope where the last of the light was touching the scrub with paler shades. ‘Half an hour from now,’ he said, ‘they’ll pop up over that ridge.’
Seven
Major Baldamus’ launch lay in position off Cape Kastamanitsa. The light was going but it was warm and the land scents were coming from Aeos, bringing the smell of dust mingled with flowers and pine trees. The southern aspect of the island looked like a flat wall from which the colours were going and the shadows were taking over as the land grew misty in the twilight. Nothing moved and there were no lights. A narrow spiral of smoke lifted slowly into the air from the direction of Ay Yithion, a reminder to Baldamus of Untersturmbannführer Fernbrugge’s activities that morning.
The radio in the cabin below began to cheep and a moment later one of the Wehrmacht soldiers who were crewing the launch appear
ed alongside Baldamus with a message. It was from Ehrhardt and it had a faintly exultant note that did Baldamus’ heart good. ‘No word from Fernbrugge,’ it said. ‘Suspect he’s got himself into trouble. Have sent out a party to rescue him.’
Baldamus glanced at the time of origin of the message and saw with surprise that it was more than four hours since Fernbrugge had set out to pick up soldiers and head south.
He clicked his fingers and the signaller gave him a message pad. Baldamus wrote quickly, ordering Ehrhardt to find out if Fernbrugge had managed to collect his soldiers from Haussmann’s special battalion. If he had and had lost himself for four hours, then he was in trouble, whatever had happened. Baldamus could imagine nothing on Aeos to account for a four-hour silence, and Haussmann wasn’t the man to lie down even before the SS.
As the signaller disappeared and the cheeping of his radio started again, Baldamus sat in the wheelhouse staring at the land. He lit a cigarette and someone handed him a mug of coffee which he drank in his slow fastidious way.
The young engineer-lieutenant who was in command of the launch appeared and Baldamus indicated the headland. Is this the best place for us?’ he asked.
The lieutenant peered towards the land. If anything leaves the island we’ll be right across its path,’ he replied.
‘Wouldn’t it be worth poking our nose into the bay to see if they’re still there?’
The lieutenant shook his head. ‘It would be dark before we got there.’
‘Haven’t you a searchlight?’
‘Perhaps they’ve got one too, and I wouldn’t want to be caught where we couldn’t manoeuvre. I gather they’ve got a 20-millimetre cannon.’
‘Couldn’t they slip past in the dark?’
The lieutenant shrugged. ‘I’m not Kriegsmarine,’ he said. ‘I’m just an engineer-lieutenant who used to own a boat of his own at Rostock. I’ve not been trained to fight sea battles. Mind—’ he grinned ‘—with the gun we’ve got, I think we could stop anything that came near us.’ He pointed towards the two caiques laying off his starboard quarter, fifty yards away and twenty yards apart, one slightly astern of the other. Like the launch, they were at anchor, bows to the breeze coming off the land.
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