IAIN GALE
Jackals’ Revenge

Dedication

To Patrick Barty

and

the people of Crete

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Historical Note

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

Dawn rose over the pass of Thermopylae as it had since the beginning of time. As it had on that day 2,000 years ago, when Leonidas’ Spartans had died to the last man holding this great natural strongpoint against the invading Persian hordes. This morning, though, something was different, for with the dawn came a new sound on the air, drowning out the bees and the birdsong and shattering the peace of an Attic morning. It was a high-pitched whine, descending earthwards out of the sky. The sound of modern war. The clarion call of a new and terrible barbarism which had laid claim to the civilised world.

Captain Peter Lamb heard the sound and looked up in alarm. He knew it only too well. Had become familiar with it in the fields and on the roads of France less than a year ago, and it made his blood run cold. Without a second glance he yelled across the pass to where his men were sitting pulling through their guns. They had been on stand-to all night, waiting for the German attack that was sure to come. Their faces were drawn with exhaustion, but for all their fatigue they had already heard the sound. The younger men, the new recruits and replacements, were still looking skywards, not certain what they heard, although it was not new to them. The old hands, though, were already on their feet as the words left Lamb’s lips.

‘Stukas. Take cover.’

The first bombs fell seconds later as the whine of the sirens fixed beneath the wings of the hated aircraft reached its crescendo. The men cowered in their funk holes and in any space they could find in the unforgiving rocky landscape, their hands over their ears and their tin hats, their mouths open to lessen the shock of the blast, their bodies tucked up into tight balls. As the bombs hit, their hammer-blow explosions dug deep into the baked white rock, sending lethal shards in all directions, and the men, even though they had not been hit, mouthed their oaths. They shut their eyes tight and two of the younger ones tried to push themselves into gaps in the rocks.

Tucked into his own tiny slit-trench, Company Sergeant-Major Jim Bennett saw them and ran across to them at a crouch, before speaking through the din, hard into their faces. ‘Now then, Dawlish, Carter, you don’t want the captain to see you hiding like that, do you?’

‘No, Sergeant-Major.’

‘No, Sergeant-Major. I should bloody well think not. Now bloody well brace yourselves and look like soldiers. They’ll be gone soon enough.’

Bennett swore quietly. It was bravado, of course. But sometimes, he thought, keeping up morale was more like being a wet-nurse. He thought of the old platoon, of the men they had left behind in the fields of France last year and the few they had led out and who were still with them, and he wished for the impossible. Bennett knew they would just have to make do with what they had. But he had confidence in Lamb. If any officer could lick them into shape he knew it would be his. Hadn’t most of them already come through Egypt together? He knew that some of them at least had the makings of good soldiers. Still, though, he longed for his fallen friends and prayed that these new lads would prove themselves capable of avenging them.

Bennett had been right about the raid. Within minutes it was over. Two bombs each, and that was it for the six-plane squadron. The dive-bombers veered away like hawks up into the azure sky and the men crawled out from their holes into the dusty air of the balmy April morning, coughing and cursing.

Lamb and his men, C Company, the North Kents, or the Black Jackals as they were known to the army, had been given simple orders. ‘Hold the pass. Do not allow the enemy through.’

His CO, Colonel George de Russet, had made it plain enough to them at the last Order Group. ‘Gentlemen, here we are and here we bloody well stay.’

Lamb knew that the Stukas had only been a taster and prepared himself for what he knew was to come. This would be as hard a battle as he had yet fought, and perhaps his last.

He shouted across to Bennett: ‘Sarnt-Major. Any casualties?’

‘Two, sir. One’s a goner. Spencer.’

Poor bugger, thought Lamb. He’s the first then. How many more today? He turned towards the young lieutenant in command of Number 1 platoon, Charles Eadie. ‘Charles, see if you can make those slit-trenches any deeper. This rock’s bloody stuff but we’ll have to do better than that before their big guns open up or we’ll all be goners.’

As the lieutenant scuttled away across the rocks, Lamb considered their position. He had led eighty men into Greece just under a month ago. Now he commanded something over half that number. They were still in their three platoons and of the three junior officers he had lost only one, the young lieutenant of Number 3 platoon, who had been replaced with a transfer from Battalion HQ. There were now forty-eight men plus himself. And, whatever their orders, whatever position they were told to hold, it was now his ultimate task to get them away and back to Alexandria. Two days ago the Greeks had surrendered, and now the British and Commonwealth troops who had been sent to defend them were on their own.

Lamb’s immediate orders were to cover the withdrawal of the New Zealand 6th Division. So now here they sat, the Jackals, in the pass of Thermopylae. The bloody rearguard. Again.

The Greek campaign had been a hard schooling, and of the casualties in his company two were now in hospital in Athens with nervous exhaustion, their minds as shattered as the bodies of those who had died. In a previous war – his father’s war – they would have been shot as cowards. Now Lamb thanked God, at least they were only labelled insane. It did not surprise him. Although they had seen action in Egypt, they had only caught the last of the fighting in Cyrenaica before the Italian surrender in February. Greece had been very different. They had seen and felt the full might of the German war machine. Worst of all, the Germans held the skies. There seemed to be no end of their planes. Surely they would just bomb Greece into submission?

Eadie was back with him now. ‘I’ve got all the platoon sergeants on the case, sir. I’ve told them to get the men to dig down another foot.’

‘They’ll be lucky if they manage six inches.’

Charles Eadie was a curious-looking man, with a large head sitting on huge, broad shoulders and a naturally nut-brown complexion which suggested that at some point one of his ancestors might have been born the wrong side of the counterpane, as his mother would have put it. His movements too seemed awkward, but strangely he managed to be quite dexterous and was always perfectly turned out, even now in this dustbowl. His green eyes shone like emeralds from the dark skin and as usual he was wearing a smile, but it did not disguise his nervousness.

After a few moments he spoke. ‘We can’t really hold them here, sir, can we?’

‘No, Charles. I don’t think we can. But we can try, can’t we?’

There was a pause. ‘D’you think we’ll make it out of here, sir?’

‘I would say we had a fighting chance. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course, sir. We’re the Jackals, after all. And it’s a pretty good position.’

‘Yes, pretty good.’ Lamb smiled. ‘Although it didn’t do the Spartans much good.’

‘Sir?’

‘Thermopylae, Eadie. Where are your Classics?’

‘Oh, I wasn’t very good at Classics, sir. I was more of a mathematician at school. But I do know that there was a battle here before. In history.’

Lamb nodded. ‘And we, Charles, are standing in the footsteps of heroes.’

The man who had been standing to their right, a sergeant, now spoke and Lamb realised unsettlingly that he had been there all the time. He had a curious accent, clipped and cultured, yet somehow not of the establishment, as if behind everything he said there might be an element of sarcasm. ‘Actually, sir, there have been six battles here. The Spartans, of course, the famous one against the Persians in 480 bc, but then there was another in 353 bc, one in 279 bc when the Gauls attacked, then the Romans came here in 190 bc, and then they themselves were attacked by the German tribes in ad 267, and then of course there was the Greek revolution in 1821. Byron and all that.’

Lamb shook his head. ‘Is there any end to your knowledge, Valentine?’

The sergeant shrugged. ‘Couldn’t say, sir. I was just praying that we’d get out of here alive. And that we aren’t captured.’

‘I share your sentiments.’

‘But I really do mean it, sir. You know that when the Greek revolutionary hero Diakos was captured here by the Turks in 1821 they impaled him and roasted him alive on a spit.’

Eadie blanched. Lamb laughed. ‘Valentine, I hardly think that the Germans will do that if they capture us, do you?’

Valentine shrugged and smiled. ‘Who knows, sir. Anything can happen in this war. Permission to brew up, sir.’

Lamb nodded, and as Valentine wandered off he shook his head and wondered to what god or gods that conundrum of a man had been making his prayers.

They had been through France together, and Valentine had saved Lamb’s life. Twice. They had come through the chaos of the Dunkirk retreat and had made it back home. But they had also witnessed atrocities in France and he knew that similar massacres were already happening in Greece. But roasted alive? He hardly thought so. Not even the Nazis.

Lamb sat on a rock, took the map from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Above him on a high rock a goat moved, loosening stones and jangling up the hill pursued by a small boy who was shouting something in Greek. Life goes on, he thought. For a while at least. He wondered what lay in store for the Greeks once they too had fallen under the Nazi boot. The same fate as France? Stories had come out that in that country where he had fought so recently the population was being systematically brutalised.

He had brought out a French girl, Madeleine, and he thanked God that he had. They had become very close. Lovers. But he had left her back in London when the battalion had shipped out to Egypt with 1st Armoured Brigade in January and he wondered how far she had got with her efforts to join the Free French army that had formed in London under de Gaulle. He had no love for the man, not after what had happened to the Highlanders temporarily under his command on the Somme last year. But they said that his presence now as the leader of the Free French in London had given his countrymen fresh hope, and that, Lamb knew, was what really mattered.

He was not sure, though, what hope there was for him and Madeleine. Although he had written to her several times, he had received only one letter from her since Egypt and that of course had been censored. He wondered if he would ever see her again. It seemed to him at this moment that he would either die here or be taken prisoner and he wondered how long the war might last. Hitler must be stopped, of course. But now Britain stood entirely alone against the might of the Nazis.

He looked over at his men as they recovered from the air attack, lighting up cigarettes and making tea. They were new faces, most of them, and a precious few of the die-hards of his old platoon that he had brought out of France. Apart from Valentine and Bennett there was Private Smart, his batman and the newly promoted signals operator at Company HQ. He watched as Corporal Mays, now made up to sergeant of Number 2 platoon, cadged a Woodbine from one of the new intake, and looked across at the group of Butterworth, Hughes, Perkins and Wilkinson, corporals now, all of them. Stubbs, the heavy weapons expert, was a corporal too and had been given command of the company mortars. And Private Hale, who had been wounded at the Dyle and whom they had all given up for dead or captured, had miraculously appeared again at the depot at Tonbridge and now he too had a stripe.

Lamb counted himself particularly lucky to have managed to hold on to Jim Bennett. The army had wanted the tough cockney sergeant as a drill instructor for officer training. But Lamb had insisted and, although the Sergeant-Major didn’t know it, he had made it a condition of accepting his own promotion to captain and the company that went with it that Bennett should stay with him. A little string-pulling had done it. But then what were connections for, if not for that? He and Bennett knew each other in the way that only a junior officer and his sergeant can. They were a close team, each reading the other’s thoughts at any crucial moment. He could not afford to lose him. And he knew too that while Bennett might be one of the bravest men he had ever met, at present his mind was filled with more than the battle that lay ahead. Bennett had left a young wife back at home in London and she was due to give birth in seven weeks. And they had all heard what was happening to London. He cursed the Luftwaffe and reminded himself to keep a close watch on the Sergeant-Major.

The power of his connections in the higher echelons of the army had taken Lamb a little by surprise. He knew that he had managed to turn a few heads on the Staff and raise a few eyebrows with his unorthodox behaviour in France. But his promotion had been faster than he might have supposed. It had been suggested to him that he might be interested in joining a new unit, as yet unnamed, that was forming in Scotland. Some sort of elite force drawn from various regiments. Lamb had refused. He was an infantry officer, as loyal to his regiment as he was to King and country. He loved the Jackals. They were his home. And he wasn’t sure either about his exact views on an ‘elite unit’.

He also wondered whether the regiment hadn’t been chosen for the Greek expeditionary force on account of his belonging to it. Lamb had glimpsed the signature on the battalion’s movement order and recognised it as that of a certain colonel on the staff whom he knew to be keeping an eye on him. The same man had earlier suggested joining the new unit. The posting had certainly puzzled the battalion CO. ‘Greece? Us? With the tanks?’ de Russet had said. ‘Good grief! Flattered, of course. Honoured. The Jackals are always spoiling for a fight.’

He was wondering how long the war might last, when Britain might defeat Germany, when around the edge of the gully came a British major wearing red tabs on his collar. He was escorted by two armed riflemen.

The staff officer saw Lamb and smiled. ‘You the Jackals?’

‘Yes. The rearguard. C Company. Captain Lamb.’

‘Well, you’re to fall back. The rest of your battalion’s doing the same. Making for the Peloponnese. We’re all pulling out. Your battalion transports are in a field to the west of the village. Take the Brallos pass. Head south. You’d better be quick about it, Jerry’s almost here.’

‘Sorry, sir. I was told we were holding the pass.’

‘Well, you’re not holding it any more, Captain, are you? We’re leaving it to the Anzacs. This is their party now.’ He frowned. ‘You don’t actually mean you want to stay?’

Lamb shrugged. ‘Well, I want to do what’s right, sir. At least we’ll do what we’re ordered to, sir. I thought we might hold them up for a few hours.’

‘Or get blown to pieces in the process, Captain. Come on. Ten minutes. That’s all.’ And with that he was gone.

Lamb turned to Bennett. ‘I don’t believe it, Sarnt-Major. Do you?’

‘Just like in France, sir, if you ask me. No one knows what the blazes is going on. Not ours to question, though, sir. Eh? We’ll leave it to the Kiwis.’

‘Yes, you’re right, Bennett. It’s just that I can’t help feeling as if we’ve been given a last-minute reprieve. And desperately sorry for those poor bastards in the pass.’

Bennett was right, he thought. It was just like France. There too they had been told to pull out after having first been ordered to hold on. There, though, Lamb had disobeyed the order and it had damn near killed him. The wound in his back still gave him the occasional pain. This time he would do as he was told. This was no time for heroics. Not yet. He wondered, though, when the army would really stop retreating. They had won a victory in Egypt against the Italians, but it seemed that wherever they met the Germans in battle it was the British who did the running. They looked down into the pass towards where the New Zealanders had their forward positions.

‘They’re damn good fighters, sir. They’ll hold Jerry up for a while.’

Lamb nodded his head. ‘Yes, Sarnt-Major. I’m sure they will. We’d better get moving if we’re going. Get the chaps together, will you. We’ve only got ten minutes.’

There was a whine from north of the pass followed by a huge explosion.

Lamb stared at the rising cloud of dust. ‘Christ, those are 88s. Come on.’

The promised transports laid on for their withdrawal were a motley collection. According to the major, the Battalion HQ, along with A and B Companies, had gone on ahead, leaving Lamb with the last pickings. They amounted to two 3-ton trucks, a Bren carrier and a couple of fuel bowsers. Somehow, though, they managed to cram themselves in with all their equipment, and at last, with more rounds from the German anti-tank guns crashing into the emplacements behind them around the pass, they set off south west. Lamb took the lone carrier in front, and led the way along the road away from Thermopylae.

Their path was surprisingly clear. They rattled along through the morning heat, the distinctive scent of thyme and the baking, parched earth rising from the countryside. From time to time they passed evidence of German air attack: a shot-up vehicle or a peasant cart and the bodies of a horse or a team of oxen. They drove on for two hours, climbing steadily until the poplar-clad mountains enveloped them on both sides. The lower slopes of the hills, where the trees had been taken, were dotted with scrub. Beyond this was thick foliage: oaks and beeches and, as Lamb remarked to Bennett, pear trees. Ahead of them they could see the dust from the column, and occasionally, where the road took a twist and doubled back on itself, they saw their comrades below them, in a long trail of carriers and trucks.

Near the village of Brallos, through the pass that guarded the left flank of the Allied army, the countryside opened out and they found themselves on a high plain looking across to a vast mountain range. It was breathtakingly beautiful. They passed into a lush valley dotted with red-roofed farms and olive groves. But now Lamb began to worry, for apart from a few old men playing cards outside a bar, a few villages back, they had not seen any people. Not one.

On the outskirts of the little town of Levadia they turned a corner and came to an abrupt halt behind a cart. It was moving, but only just, and was piled high with belongings – a chest of drawers balanced on a table sat next to battered leather suitcases and two gilt-framed pictures. Perched amid and on top of the whole pile was an old crone dressed in black from head to foot. She was sitting facing them, travelling backwards, rocking back and forth and wailing quietly. Beyond the cart lay what looked to Lamb like an endless line of other carts and trucks of all descriptions. There were donkeys, too, and a horde of civilians. He swore. ‘Damn. This is what I feared. Those villages back there were much too quiet. This is why. They’ve heard the Germans are coming and they’re not staying to welcome them.’

Smart spoke. ‘Perhaps it’s just a bottleneck, sir. Maybe someone’ll pull the plug.’

‘Maybe, Smart.’

But ten minutes later they came to a halt and ten minutes after that they had still not moved. Lamb spoke to his runner, Bill Turner, seated behind him in the carrier, who had been chosen for the post as the fastest man in the company. ‘Turner, go ahead and see what’s going on.’

Five minutes later the man returned, breathless. ‘It’s a real jam up ahead, sir. Trucks and carts and all sorts.’

‘No idea what’s causing it?’

‘Could be anything, sir. Just goes on for about a mile. I didn’t get to the front. Shall I go back, sir?’

‘No, don’t bother. Any sign of the rest of the battalion?’

‘No, sir. There’s no Brits up there. A few Greek soldiers, but aside from that it’s all civvies.’

‘Damn. This lot must have cut in between us and them at that last junction. Well, there’s no other route and Jerry’s too close on our tail. We’ll just have to get out here and hoof it.’

Lamb looked around at the countryside. It was hard terrain off the road, with steep drops and vineyards and olive groves, which would make the going hard. But how the devil could they get past the mass of humanity on the road? He climbed out of the carrier. ‘I’m going to take a look. Sarnt-Major, Turner, you come with me. The rest of you wait here. Charles, tell the others what’s going on.’

The three of them pushed through the crowd of civilians along the road and Lamb marvelled at their composure. For the most part they passed through the crowd without comment. But soon Lamb became aware of an overwhelming atmosphere of grief. While children wailed and mothers chided, some of the refugees seemed almost catatonic, staring at the ground or away into the distance. Occasionally someone, usually a Greek soldier, would notice the three Englishmen and smile or give a thumbs-up. Civilians were mixed in with the military, and looking at them Lamb thought how war had become a great leveller, possibly more than it had ever been. Over to his left a woman in a fur coat and an ornate hat was stumbling along the road on high heels accompanied by her ageing and still neatly besuited husband. Who was he? he wondered. A lawyer, a doctor? Groups of civilians stayed close together, presumably families and neighbours from the same villages. What had they left behind, and what did they have now? And where were they going? To stay with relatives in the safety of the mountains? He supposed that more than a few of them might not have any idea.

The trail of people and vehicles seemed endless. At last, after what Lamb reckoned might have been the best part of a mile, they found what they had been looking for – a huge truck, old, with peeling black paintwork and of uncertain age and make, was slewed across the road and around it stood a cluster of Greek men of all ages: old men and boys, farm hands and soldiers in filthy and incomplete battledress. The men were talking and gesticulating towards the truck. Lamb had no Greek save the little he had learnt at school and he had quickly discovered how different that was from the local patois. It was clear to anyone, though, that the thing was stuck. He pushed through the men and stared at the truck as a Newmarket trainer might look at a horse, assessing its pedigree, its probable strengths and weaknesses, for one of the traits which marked Lamb out among his fellow officers was his knowledge of mechanics. Before the war, while he had thrown himself into the Territorial Army, his first love had been motors. When not employed as manager of a garage in his home town of Sevenoaks, when not in the drill hall or on manoeuvres, he had spent his evenings tinkering with his beloved BSA. There was little about engines that Lamb did not know or could not work out. He could of course take the easy option. They could take the brake off and push the thing off the road. But he looked around him at the empty, anxious faces and knew that it was not really an option. To destroy this precious means of transport might mean the end of all hope for a good dozen of these people if not more – old women and young children incapable, try as they might, of making it through the mountains to the safety of some hilltop village. The truck was their only chance of salvation.

He walked over to the truck and lifted the bonnet. A man beside him muttered something in Greek and Lamb smiled at him and shrugged. Then, propping open the bonnet, he removed his battledress top, tucked his tie into his shirt and rolled up his shirtsleeves before getting to work.

The Greeks stood staring, fascinated, as this British officer worked away at the engine. After a few minutes Lamb raised his head from inside the bonnet and yelled at Bennett. ‘Sarnt-Major, turn her over, will you.’

Bennett climbed into the cab and, finding the starter, switched it on. There was a deep roar, a thump and a chug and the Greeks gave a cheer. But after three revolutions the noise stopped. Lamb swore and dived back into the oily mess that was the engine.

Half an hour and two further attempts later, despairing, Lamb again raised his head. ‘Right, Bennett. One more time.’ The Sergeant-Major, patient as ever, turned the starter and the machine burst into life. The Greeks, who had not stopped watching, reserved their applause this time, but now the motor continued to turn over and after a few minutes they began to cheer. Lamb emerged from the bonnet wearing a huge grin, his face covered in grime and his hands caked in oil and grease. One of the Greeks offered him a torn sheet and he wiped himself down gratefully. ‘I thought we’d never get it,’ he said to no one in particular. A priest standing close by nodded and smiled at him and several of the men clapped him on the back. ‘Whose truck is it, anyway?’ asked Lamb, gesticulating. But, to judge from the shrugs, no one knew. Perhaps, he thought, the owner had given up and abandoned it. He called to Turner. ‘Get it moving. Get as many on board as it’ll take.’ Returning the handshakes of the Greeks, Lamb smiled and accompanied by Bennett made his way back to the carrier.

‘You know, sir, you could just have ditched it. Pushed it off the edge, like.’

‘Yes. But did you see them? How could I do that? It would have been like a death sentence.’

Bennett nodded and said nothing. He knew that Lamb was haunted by something that had happened in France. A bridge that they had been ordered to demolish with high explosive. A bridge that had been packed not just with the advancing enemy, but with Belgian and French civilians – men, women and children. And he knew that Lamb would never forgive himself and would take any chance to atone.

They reached the carrier. ‘Smart, see if you can raise Battalion on that crystal set. Tell them we’ve been held up. Get their direction, can you.’

While the radio operator began to tinker with the unreliable field wireless, Bennett started up the carrier. Ahead of them the convoy was beginning to move.

After a few miles they reached a junction in the road and were soon caught up in a massive column. While the refugees remained in front, they were no longer the bulk of the column. From a road to their left, the road from Thermopylae by way of the coast, lorries were filtering on to the main highway, filled to bursting with British, Greek and Commonwealth troops. Lamb looked at the men in the trucks. He saw grim, unshaven faces, tattered uniforms, and noticed the shortage of weapons. This is an army in retreat, he thought. The same army, in fact in many cases the same soldiers that he had witnessed pulling back in France almost exactly a year ago. A year that seemed a lifetime away.

It took them another five hours to get to the outskirts of Thebes. Lamb looked down at his watch. It was close to 4 p.m. As they drove on, he looked to either side of the road and saw that they were in a bivouac area, bounded on either side by slit-trenches and laagers of trucks covered in camouflage netting. To the right on a slight rise in the ground stood a lone 25-pounder. Everywhere, in the olive groves that lined the road, men were sitting, shattered by exhaustion. Most of them were asleep, quite oblivious to the cacophony of the column pouring past their billets. He wondered which enlightened officer would have chosen to make camp there. It was not a position that he would have chosen – open, exposed and with little natural cover. He was wondering where they should stop when there was a cry from the roadside. ‘Aircraft. Take cover.’ Instantly, Bennett killed the motor on the carrier and the other drivers followed suit. The men slapped open the tailboards and, jumping down, ran to the sides of the road and threw themselves forward into the foliage, disappearing amid the scrub. Lamb followed them and landed hard on his back, reawakening the pain from the old wound. Sitting up he found himself beside two New Zealanders, their heads buried in their hands. One of them spoke, without bothering to see if he was addressing an officer. ‘Hide yer face, fer Chrissake, mate. The Jerries can spot anything down here.’

Lamb silently ignored the man’s lack of deference, took the advice and pushed his head between his knees. As he did so, he heard the whine of engines in the sky and waited for the bombs.

2

There was nothing at first, just the shrill noise of a single-engined aircraft. Lamb did not dare to look up. Spotter plane, he thought. Then he heard it wheeling away and a few seconds later it was replaced by the deeper drone that he had dreaded. The bombers came in low and dropped their sticks in no particular way on the road. He heard the bombs fall almost rhythmically and thought, There really is no point in worrying. If one of them has my name on it then that’s it. This is war. Random and unforgiving. There was a huge explosion and then another and another as the stick of bombs fell in their orderly row along the road. Another, different explosion told him that one of them had found a target, a truck of some sort. He prayed that there had been no men left inside. They were so powerless here, utterly unable to fight back. Perhaps the politicians had been right after all before the war. Perhaps the battle for the skies was what would win. Hadn’t the Battle of Britain proved that? But from where he was sitting this was an infantry war as well. These rocks, these hills, he knew would never be taken until the Wehrmacht had pushed the last Allied soldier back into the sea. And even then, when the Germans were in Athens, he knew the Greeks would not give up their country. Another stick of bombs crashed through the earth and Lamb, pushing his tin hat down on his head, heard the big New Zealander next to him let out an oath and sensed the man pushing himself into the ground. He thought of Bennett and knew that his thoughts must be going out to his wife as she sat cowering, as they were now, beneath the stairs in the Sergeant-Major’s house in Islington. And just as he waited for the next bombs to fall, Lamb heard the engines fading.

As the planes wheeled away he raised his head and turned to the New Zealanders. ‘Who are you?’

‘20th Battalion, 5th Brigade, sir. We’ve come down from Molos. Never seen anything like it, sir.’

His mate joined in, stony-faced. ‘Hundreds of our lads were killed. Hundreds of them, some in a bayonet charge. We was shelled all morning and as we were pulling out too, shells everywhere. Didn’t even know if we’d get out or not.’

Lamb said nothing but shook his head, hoping that would be enough. He stood up and looked for the company. Called out. ‘Sarnt-Major, Lieutenant Eadie, Mister Whitworth, Mister Sugden. To me. Sarnt-Major, casualty report.’

‘Sir.’

‘Gentlemen, I think that we had better get on before Jerry makes the road impassable. Get your men together and mount up. We leave in ten, casualties notwithstanding.’ He turned away and raised his voice. ‘Sarnt-Major, casualties?’

‘None, sir. It’s a bloody miracle.’

‘Well, saddle up then. Ten minutes.’

Leaving the New Zealanders to manage as best they could down the pot-holed road, they carried on. Thebes itself was deserted. The German bombers had done their work here. It was hard for the untutored eye to tell what was an ancient ruin and what more recent damage. Through the town they began to gain height as they went until the sides of the hills became steeper and they entered a pass, thickly wooded on both flanks.

Lamb turned to Bennett. ‘Keep your wits about you, Sarnt-Major. If the Jerries have managed to get round the flank this would be the perfect spot for an ambush. Smart, have you managed to raise Battalion on that thing yet?’

‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’

‘Don’t worry, not your fault. I just wish we knew where they were.’

He looked at the tattered map that he had taken from the canvas map case at his feet. ‘Once we get through this pass there’s a village and then a fork in the road. We take the right, towards Corinth. Once we get over the bridge there we are in the Peloponnese. Then it’s a straight run to the sea.’

Bennett smiled. ‘I do like to be beside the seaside.’

‘Home in time for tea, sir?’

‘Not quite, Turner. But we’ll give it a try.’

The mood of optimism was short lived. As they drove on, the pass became ever narrower. Lamb scanned right and left. ‘Be alert. Keep your eyes open.’

They rounded a bend in the road and Bennett slammed on both brakes, bringing the carrier to an abrupt halt. Lamb jolted forward, knocking his chest against the front of the carrier and dropping the map. ‘Christ, Bennett, have a care …’ Then he saw that ahead of them to the left lay a defensive barrier of stones made into a chest-high wall – a sangar, which was matched on the opposite side of the road by another, leaving a narrow gap only just wide enough for a lorry to negotiate. The top of each wall was lined with Lewis guns and riflemen, while a heavy machine-gun had been set up in the middle of the road. As they looked on a sergeant appeared from behind the right-hand sangar, his Thompson gun held at waist level and fixed directly on Bennett.

The man spoke in a broad New Zealand accent. ‘Who goes there?’

‘Friend,’ said Lamb, quickly. ‘North Kents. We’re trying to get to Corinth.’

The sergeant whistled and within seconds they were surrounded by his men, rifles at the ready. The sergeant advanced to the carrier and peered at Lamb. ‘North Kents? What the bloody blazes are you lot doing here? We thought you were Jerries. Almost let you have it.’ He paused. ‘Maybe you are Jerries …’

Lamb shook his head. ‘Good God, not again. Listen, Sergeant, I went through all this in France a year ago. How many times? I don’t know. What d’you want to know? Who won the Cup last year? The length of Don Bradman’s inside leg? The name of the King’s dog? Where Winston Churchill gets his bloody cigars?’

The sergeant peered at him. ‘Nah, sir. You’re kosher. No bloody fifth columnist would ever have said that. Sorry, sir, can’t be too careful. We’re the rearguard, see. Jerry can’t be far behind you. Haven’t you heard, sir? They’ve taken Corinth. Yesterday. Only took them two hours. Paratroops. We blew the bridge, though.’

Lamb felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. If the Germans had taken the Corinth canal then that meant the whole of the Peloponnese was cut off. He was aware that the New Zealand sergeant was still talking. ‘… I said why don’t you go through there, sir. The pass broadens out again there, sir. You’ll find yourself a billet if you need one.’

Thanking the sergeant, they drove on and Bennett summed up Lamb’s thoughts. ‘I wonder if the battalion got across before the Jerries took it.’

‘Well one thing’s for sure, Sarnt-Major. If they did, we can’t follow them now. There’s only one way out for us and that’s through Athens.’

There was no point in trying to make Athens by nightfall, and if they carried on along the road in daylight they would just be more sitting targets for the Luftwaffe. Better to stand here and set off again in the early hours of the morning under cover of darkness. ‘We’ll stop here, Sarnt-Major. Pull up over there.’

They parked the trucks and Lamb walked across to one of a number of the sangars which dotted the area. The pass, as the sergeant had told them, had broadened out and given way to olive groves and a landscape of cultivated fields and vineyards. He found a corporal. ‘Is your officer anywhere?’

A voice spoke from behind a wall of rocks. ‘Actually I’m over here. Who wants to know?’ A tall New Zealand captain walked forward. ‘Captain Nichols. And you are?’

‘Lamb. North Kents.’

‘The Jackals. Didn’t know you were here.’

‘I’m trying to get my company through to Corinth, but there’s no hope of that now.’

‘You heard, then. About Corinth.’

‘Yes. Paratroops.’

‘Well, we knew they’d do it one day. So what now?’

Lamb shrugged. ‘Well, I reckon that the battalion must have got through, but wherever they are it’s Athens for us.’

The captain nodded. ‘Yes. Look, I’d get your heads down, if I were you. No point in leaving till the morning, before sun-up, of course, or you’ll be strafed to bits by Jerry. You’ll find a free olive grove over there somewhere, near my boys. Help yourself. And you’re welcome to join the mess, Captain, what there is of it. Boiled eggs and sardines last time I looked – by the crateful. And the CO’s still got a bottle of whisky, if the old man hasn’t drunk it all already. Reckon you could use a glass. Your men can scrounge a bit of bully off our cook if they like. I think we’ve got enough to go round. Found a wrecked rations convoy back in the pass.’

Lamb smiled at the unexpected generosity. ‘Thanks. I’ll see that they’re fed.’

Nichols explained the position to him. ‘The road here twists its way up a gorge, with a wonderful view down towards Kriekouki. That’s the road Jerry will take. D Company’s over on the left, then A Company, and C Company’s over there, away out on the right. They’re right up on a knoll, with a sort of ravine between them and A. They’re all linked in to Battalion headquarters by lines. The Aussies did that for us this morning. Not that it’ll do anyone much good at the moment, of course. Complete wireless silence. Not a peep, or Jerry’ll throw the lot at us. Worst thing is that if we get bombed there’s bugger all we can do but sit it out. Those Aussie gunners have been told not to fire at any planes unless they see us.’

‘But if we’re getting bombed they’ll have seen us anyway, won’t they?’

Nichols shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me, I just know the orders. I don’t have to make them, thank God.’ He smiled, indicating an opinion of the High Command, and then carried on. ‘So the Bren carriers from 20 Battalion are on the left flank, and the others and the machine-gun company are out on the right, just in case Jerry decides to drop any more paratroops. Oh, and we’ve got part of an Aussie field ambulance unit in the village. You might need them.’

Lamb nodded and looked across to the left flank, where the Bren carriers were, but saw nothing. Their camouflage was good. The ground too was in their favour. The lower slopes of the mountain were covered with a sort of short scrub, rather like broom; then farther up was bare rock. As far as Lamb could see most of the hills on the north side were wooded, right down to the edge of the valley. It was dense cover: pine, holly and oaks. On the whole he felt more secure here than he had at Thermopylae.

Eadie, Wentworth and Sugden saw to the men before handing over to their sergeants and joining Lamb at the ‘mess’, which consisted of two groundsheets and some camouflage netting slung between some olive trees. An orderly had managed to find enough crates to act as a table, so there it was that they sat, sipping warm beer that the quartermaster sergeant had found in a taverna in Levadia, while Lamb accepted a measure of the colonel’s precious scotch.

The New Zealand captain talked to Lamb about the Greek landscape. ‘Terrible country here, you know. God knows how they farm it. Nothing but blasted rock. The only thing that’ll grow are blasted olive trees. Hardly surprising there’s nothing but bloody goats. Christ, who the hell would farm bloody goats? Now you want to come and see New Zealand, old man. You haven’t seen grass till you see our fields. And our farms. I’ll show you what real farming is. Honestly, Lamb. If you want a new start after this is all over, come and see me. I’m not kidding.’

Lamb smiled. He had never contemplated emigrating. Never would. What, he reasoned, could he possibly find on the other side of the world that he could not have in England? He respected the New Zealanders and the Aussies. Had fought alongside them in the desert. They were good fighters, tough as they came, and they made his own men, most of them, seem puny with their physique. But he would never get used to the extraordinary relationship both nationalities had with their officers. Never. Of course his own relationship with Bennett, and even with the unfathomable Valentine, come to that, was something special, but about the Antipodeans there was a lack of respect, a lack of deference that would never be part of what Lamb knew to be at the heart of the British army. So he smiled sweetly at Captain Nichols and raised his glass. ‘Love to, old man. After all this.’

He was just wondering whether the colonel might offer them another whisky when there was a commotion from the sentries. No shots, just raised voices, one of which sounded to Lamb distinctly patrician. The colonel looked around and nodded at one of the junior officers. ‘Frank. Be a good chap and see what that’s all about, will you.’ He paused and smiled, weakly, like a man resigned to his fate. ‘The rest of you might like another. We’d better make the most of it, don’t you think? God knows where we’ll be tomorrow, after Jerry gets here.’

The mess steward, a hairy former sheep-shearer from Auckland, moved around silently through the group of officers dispensing from the whisky bottle until it was drained and then, as the soda water followed from a syphon that bizarrely had made it to Greece across 8,000 miles of ocean, there was a roar from the road and as they watched, still clutching their drinks, a long black limousine, a Citroën, Lamb thought, sped past their improvised mess, along the road, in the direction of Athens.

It was preceded by two exhausted-looking motorcyclists and followed by several other vehicles, brimming with troops.

Lamb looked at the occupants and recognised General ‘Jumbo’ Wilson, commander of the Allied forces in Greece, in the front seat beside the driver. Behind him, alongside a woman wearing an elaborate hat, was a tanned and callow youth wearing the uniform of a general in the Greek army, his face set in a stern expression. The vehicles drove past them throwing up dust and rock. Lamb turned to the Kiwi CO, Colonel Robertson. ‘Was that who I think it was, sir?’

The colonel nodded. ‘Yes, I think it was.’ He called to the gawky lieutenant, who had come hurrying back from the sentries. ‘Frank, who the devil was that?’

‘The Prince of Greece, sir, Prince Peter, and General Wilson.’

Captain Nichols spoke. ‘Blimey, sir. Jumbo himself. They weren’t half in a hurry. Didn’t even stop for a drink.’

There was laughter from the officers. Colonel Robertson smiled. ‘They’re on their way to the sea. Getting away. And I daresay that’s where we should be headed now ourselves, gentlemen. But for the moment we’ve got to stay here and fight.’

It was the signal for the end of their little party, and Lamb returned to the men. He found Bennett. ‘Sarnt-Major, get the men together. I need to talk to them.’

They assembled quickly. He would not say much, he thought. No ‘St Crispin’s Day’ oratory. Just a few words to steady their nerves. Lamb climbed on to a rock to address them; looked around and saw some familiar faces, those few of the men who had come with him out of France the year before, and many more of those whom he had led through Egypt and into Greece. Men whom he knew he would now trust with his life. He coughed and smiled.

‘Good evening. I hope that you’ve been fed and that the Sarnt-Major has looked after you all.’ There was laughter and someone called out, ‘Like me own mother, sir.’

Lamb nodded and went on. ‘You know what we’ve got to do. We came here to stop the Jerries taking Greece and we haven’t quite managed it. It’s no fault of yours. But now we’ve got a different job to do. If we can’t save Greece then at least we can save our own men and let them get away to Egypt. The command don’t expect the Kiwis here to hold this place. What they have got to do is slow Jerry up and give him a bloody nose. And we’re going to help them.’

One of the men spoke. One of the new ones, Hay, a good-looking East End lad on whom Lamb was keeping his eye for a future NCO. ‘Like the Guards at Dunkirk did, sir. Didn’t they?’

‘Yes, Smith. Just like the Guards did at Dunkirk.’

The boy can’t have been long out of school when that happened, he thought. But they all knew about Dunkirk, about the miracle, Churchill’s miracle. They didn’t know, of course, about the other evacuation, down in Normandy, at a place called St Valery, where Lamb and his few survivors had got away. That had been no miracle. Far from it, and not spoken of now. Nor were the 8,000 men of the Highland Division whom they had had to abandon there to be taken prisoner with their general. And Lamb knew that for the present, at least, that must stay in the past. There was another battle to fight now and the enemy were pressing ever closer. He spoke again.

‘You’ve met the Kiwis here. They’re good men. Good fighters. There’s a battery of 25-pounders up on that ridge to our right. Aussies. So while the gunners fire at the tanks and trucks, it’s our job to take out the advancing infantry who’ll be following on behind. Some of you have fought with me before. You lucky few.’ More laughter. ‘The others will have heard all about that and they will know as well as you veterans do that I’m not a man to give up. So we’ll stand here with the Kiwis and do what we can, and then when we’re given our orders we’ll make our escape. And one more thing. I don’t want to leave anyone behind. Got that? Now, get what rest you can and good luck.’

There were a few murmurs of ‘Good luck to you, sir’, and the men drifted away to find shelter in the olive grove.

Lamb stepped down from the stone. One of the men had hung back. Spencer.

‘Sir, just one thing.’

‘Yes, Spencer.’

‘Sir, what exactly are we doing here? I mean, sir, I know what you just told us, about saving the Greeks and all that, but why are we here?’

‘We’re sent here, Spencer. By the generals. To try to stop Hitler. And to try to stop him without getting ourselves killed. That’s all you need to know, lad. Now off you go.’

Lamb himself wondered what they were doing in Greece. What relevance it had to Britain. France he could see. That was obvious. But he was sure they were in Greece for purely political reasons and he wondered if that was a good enough reason to die. The more he saw of those reasons in this war, the less he liked it.

Two of the lieutenants were standing beside him, and a short distance away the old lags of the company including Bennett, Valentine and Mays.

Wentworth spoke. ‘Must seem a bit strange for you, sir. A year after we get out of France we’re doing the same thing again. Retreating, I mean.’

Lamb shrugged. ‘Well, yes, you’re right, Hugh. I didn’t expect to be doing this again, not so soon. But the main thing is that, whatever happens in war, you must never stop believing. The trouble with the Jerries out there is they believe they can’t be beaten. But I tell you they can. We can beat them, and we will. If not here, then we’ll beat them soon enough.’

‘We can’t really beat them here, though, sir, can we?’

‘No, if you want me to be honest. But as I told the men, as far as I can see all that we can do is hold up the German advance and then get away with whatever we can.’ He looked across to Bennett and Valentine. ‘Sarnt-Major, come and tell the lieutenant how easy it is to beat the Nazis.’

Bennett grinned and walked over.

‘Tell Lieutenant Wentworth what we did to the enemy in France, Sarnt-Major.’

‘Well, sir. Gave him a right bloody nose. Blew up an air base, we did, and captured a colonel. Had them chasing around all over after us. And then we got all those men away off the beach, sir, didn’t we. And before that, up north, Mister Lamb – sorry, the Captain – well, he just walked out with a sack of grenades and took out two enemy positions and …’

Lamb cut him short. ‘All right, Bennett. That’s enough, I think.’

Wentworth looked at him. ‘Sir? Did you do that?’

‘Some other time, Lieutenant. It’ll have to wait. Thank you, Sarnt-Major. The main point is that the Hun can be beaten. He’s not some bogey-man. He’s human like you and me. We beat the Ities in Egypt and we can beat the bloody Jerries too. But maybe not just yet, if you see what I mean. So get back to your platoons and when they come make sure you don’t do anything silly. I want all of you, all of you, with me when we get aboard that boat to Alex.’

They saluted and left Lamb with Bennett, Valentine and Mays. It was the best that Lamb could manage to keep Wentworth’s spirits up. But he had seen the boy’s face. He knew, they all knew, that their position was hopeless. Not just here at the pass, but in a global sense.

It was perhaps even more hopeless than it had been a year ago, even though Britain itself was no longer under threat of direct invasion. The RAF had seen to that back in September. Nevertheless, with Greece under the jackboot, Egypt was threatened. And if Egypt fell then the way would be open for Hitler to walk into India. And then the end of the Empire and no more men from Down Under. Then they really would have their backs to the wall, and he wondered whether they would survive. Lamb caught himself. Mustn’t think like that. Defeatist talk. This war was all about morale. Wasn’t that what he had just told the men? If they believed in themselves they would come through as victors.

Valentine spoke. ‘Of course you know why we’re really here, sir?’

‘No, Valentine. You tell me, because I’m sure you’re going to.’

‘Well, sir, we’re here because those chaps in the High Command all studied Greek at Eton and Harrow and they’re a little sentimental about this old place. Can’t stand the idea of Nazis jack-booting about all over their precious temples.’

‘I thought you were a Classical scholar yourself, Valentine.’

‘In a way, sir, but not in the way they are. It’s Greece for the Greeks, sir, in my book. With them it’s personal. You see they all have ancestors who came over here in the eighteenth century and pinched the statues to smarten up their stately homes. And now they just can’t bear the idea that the Jerries will do the same.’

Lamb slept fitfully and had strange and disturbing dreams about Greek statues and the General Staff, in the last of which the New Zealand captain dropped from the sky by parachute, shouting ‘eggs and whisky’. He could still hear the words in his head as he was awoken by the sound of two explosions, jolting him into semi-consciousness. Coming to, he realised that they came from the direction of Thebes. He found his watch.

It was 3 a.m. Lamb got to his feet and, stumbling through his prostrate men in the olive grove, bumped into a Kiwi corporal.

‘What the hell’s happening? Any idea?’

‘There’s an enemy column advancing towards us, sir. A hundred vehicles at least. Tanks too.’ The word sent a chill through Lamb. He had a secret phobia of tanks. Of being crushed beneath their tracks. He had seen in France what that could do to a human being. He had noticed earlier, though, while talking to Nichols, that the country to their immediate flank was almost certainly tank proof. Nichols had told him that there was a track through the village of Villia up to Kriekouki, but it too was steep and easily covered. There would be no option for the German armour but to advance along the road.

There was a crash from the front and then the whoosh and thud of artillery rounds followed by several explosions. Lamb raced towards the forward sangars and saw in the valley below them that the fire from the Australian artillery had already set fire to two trucks from which, in a vision of hell, enemy infantrymen were leaping, their clothes ablaze. The sound of their screams mingled with that of gunfire and echoed across the hills. He looked along the road and saw, behind an advance guard of motorcycle troops, three more lorries outlined against the night and in front of them the unmistakable shape of a tank.

‘Here they come. Stand to.’

As the tank slowly climbed up the pass towards them, Lamb yelled again. ‘Wait for the tanks. Fire at the infantry.’

They were only 1,000 yards away now. He felt the knot tighten in his stomach as it always did when they went into action, and the dry mouth that came with it. He checked his Thompson gun, the weapon he now favoured above a pistol. One full magazine and three more in his pockets. That would do for now. The tank reversed briefly, shoving the burning trucks off the road to allow those following to pass through. Again the artillery crashed out, hitting another truck, but the rest of them lumbered on, jammed tailboard to radiator on the narrow road. The motorcyclists had halted now and had established themselves in cover on either side of the road. Within moments their heavy machine-guns were spitting death at the New Zealanders. More Germans were spilling from the backs of the trucks now, diving for cover in the scrub.

Lamb yelled. ‘Now. Open fire. Fire at the infantry.’

The three platoons opened up, and as they did so the New Zealanders around them joined in, turning the pass ahead of them into a killing ground filled with a horizontal rain of burning lead. He watched as the German infantry tried to burrow deeper into the ground to avoid the fire and as the rounds hit home, sending the young stormtroopers hurtling back like marionettes in a ghastly dance of death. Lamb squeezed the trigger of the Thompson and it kicked into life, spraying the scrub before him. He heard Bennett shout, ‘Keep it up, boys. Don’t let them get away.’ All the frustration of the past few weeks, the anger at dead friends and comrades and the knowledge that they were an army in retreat, was released in an instant. For a moment Lamb’s men forgot that they could not win this battle, that no matter how many Germans fell to their bullets they would eventually be forced to pull back. All that mattered for this moment was the fact that they were winning. They were killing the Germans in the pass, cutting through Hitler’s finest with round after deadly round of small-arms fire that had in minutes transformed a peaceful Greek hillside into an inferno. One man from Number 2 platoon stood up and, shouting some inaudible war cry, fired his rifle from the hip. Eadie yelled at him to stay down, but it was too late. He fell, almost cut in two by a hail of bullets from the machine-gun. This was no pheasant shoot. There were men out there firing at his lads.

Lamb called out, ‘Stay down. Stay in cover.’ A burst of automatic fire ripped through the night air just above his head. There was a cry from his left as another burst of German fire hit home. But it was paid back twofold. The rifles and machine-guns spewed bursts of flame into the night, the bullets ricocheting off the stones and tearing at the trees and bushes.

And then it was over. As quickly as they had come the Germans were running away across the scrub and through the vineyards, climbing back into the trucks, limping into the undergrowth and crawling through the short vines away from the stream of bullets. Still the artillery on the heights fired into the column, and more trucks burst into flames. Those that were still intact began to reverse down the hill, and the tank, which, pinned down by the gunners and blind in the dark, had showed itself powerless in such a situation, followed as fast as it could go.

Lamb gave the command. ‘Cease firing.’ The Jackals held their fire, all but three men who, elated by their unexpected success, carried on shooting at shadows until their platoon sergeants had shouted themselves nearly hoarse.

Lamb surveyed the road and hills before them. Counted eight lorries and two motorcycles burning on the highway.

He saw Nichols. ‘Well, that sent them packing. I wonder how long before they try again.’

‘Not long, I should say. If they do.’

‘They won’t try to bomb you out, will they? They need the road intact.’

‘Don’t be too sure. They don’t care how they get rid of us. Then they’ll just fix the road, or build a new one. They’re already building a new bridge at Corinth.’

Mays found him. ‘Sir. Two wounded. One bad, Marks. Hit in the thigh. He’ll need to be treated, sir.’

Nichols spoke. ‘Our MO’s somewhere by the command post to the rear. Take him there, Sergeant. I’d better see to my own men.’

Lamb walked across to the left as they were helping Marks back to the aid post and gave him a smile. ‘Well done, Marks. You’ll be fine.’ He looked around at the others, sitting in the moonlight on the rocks, wiping down their weapons and sensed not just exhaustion now but a sense of achievement. ‘Well done, all of you. That showed them. Sarnt-Major, make sure they’re ready in case Jerry tries it again. And be ready for air attack too. They know where we are now.’

It only took a few minutes before the recce planes came over. They flew close to the ground, like hawks hovering over a wheat field, swooping and climbing in their search for prey. There was no point in trying to hide. It was too late for that, and no sooner had the planes gone than others appeared over the mountains. Dorniers, lumbering in. The heavy stuff. Lamb saw them and joined in the warning shouts.

‘Aircraft. Take cover. Take cover.’

The aircraft were not as low as the Stukas. There was no frantic, screaming dive, but looking up he could see the bomb doors open and watched as the black sticks fell from the belly of the plane. He ran to one of the stone sangars and found himself crouching next to Bennett, Eadie and Smart, and it crossed his mind that this sort of thing was really of no use as cover against air attack. He prayed that the order forbidding anti-aircraft fire would be lifted, but it was a full ten minutes before he heard the crump of the Australian batteries as they tried to down the bombers. He looked up and saw little puffs of smoke appear in the sky around the planes, but by then it was too late.

‘Just in time,’ scoffed Eadie. Some distance over to their left another sangar filled with Kiwis had taken a hit and its useless stones lay scattered across the valley, along with the remains of its occupants. Lamb looked away as the Dorniers turned for home.

As the dust settled and the post came to life, with desperate medics searching for signs of life, Nichols came up to him, smiling broadly. ‘Haven’t you heard? We’re pulling out. Being relieved by 1st Armoured and the Rangers. You’d best get ahead of us and make time. No point in waiting – you’ll just get caught up in our undertow, and there’s nothing else you can do here. Our sappers are going to blow the pass anyway. Jerry will have to make a new way through.’

The adjutant, it seemed, had established a control post at the Villia crossroads to check out the brigade and the hangers-on, while the Kiwis’ CO, again in charge of the rear party, supervised the blowing of demolitions in the pass. After the excitement of the raid, Lamb again felt the cold of the night and shivered. ‘Charles, find the others and get the men together. We’re moving out.’

‘Can you say where to, sir?’

‘Athens, as far as I can see. Then a boat to Alex. After that it’s anyone’s guess.’

Bennett found them. ‘Sir, no casualties from that last lot. We were lucky, sir.’

‘Yes, damned lucky. Let’s hope it holds out.’

They watched as stretcher-bearers passed them carrying what had once been a man. Galvanised, Lamb spoke. ‘Right. Let’s get moving.’ Eadie sped off with Bennett and within minutes the men had assembled, rubbing their hands together and blowing on them against the cold. They lined up in platoons and sections and Lamb looked them over. There was no denying it, they were hardly fit for Horse Guards, as scruffy a bunch of soldiers as he had ever seen. But they were alive, and that was what mattered to him. And they were going to stay that way.

Before the German attack the transports, including their own carrier and lorries, had been moved a few miles to the rear and they made their way on foot at first.

As they passed through, Lamb heard the explosions as the first charges went off, bringing what sounded like half the old mountain down on to the road.

‘Jerry’ll never get through that lot, sir,’ said Bennett. ‘Leastways, when he does we’ll be long gone.’

Lamb heard Valentine speak, to no one in particular.

‘A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;

An hour may lay it in the dust.

That’s Byron. Lord Byron, if you will. You walk, gentlemen, in the cradle of civilisation.’

On their arrival at the transport area they were met by the unexpected and welcome sight of four Australian corporals and a handful of Australian nurses handing out tots of rum. Bennett held out his tin mug. ‘Blimey, this is a turn-up for the books.’

Valentine piped up. ‘I thought this went out with Wellington.’ He smiled at a nurse. ‘I’ll have a double please, my dear. Just like a Friday night at the Bag o’ Nails.’

An Australian sergeant approached them. ‘You got transport here, sir?’

‘Yes. One carrier, two lorries. Where did you leave them, Sarnt-Major?’

‘Over to the right there, sir. In those olive trees.’

The sergeant nodded at Lamb. ‘Very good, sir. But you’ll have to wait your turn with the others. There is a queue.’

‘Naturally,’ said Valentine, taking a short nip of rum.

They found the trucks and Lamb produced the distributors which he had had the foresight to remove, carefully replacing each one. As they waited and slowly sipped at the acrid spirit, they watched other units depart, queuing up for their turn to get away to freedom.

At last the sergeant nodded them on, saluting Lamb, and the three vehicles rumbled out on to the road. As they hit the track an Aussie redcap, standing at the roadside, yelled across. ‘Put your foot down, mate. We don’t want to hold up the ones coming behind.’

Bennett shook his head. ‘He’s got some hope, sir. No headlights. That’s the order. Isn’t it?’

‘Yes, that’s the order, Sarnt-Major. Stop the Jerry planes from seeing us in the dark. Better do as he says, though. Quick as you can then.’

‘Whatever you say, sir.’ Bennett pushed gingerly on the accelerator and soon they were doing a comfortable 15 miles an hour along the narrow road, just able to see the rear of the truck in front, by the light of the moon.

‘Just as well we can’t see a blind thing, sir.’ Turner said. ‘Reckon there must be a sheer drop over there.’

At that moment, Bennett pushed the carrier round a turning and Lamb was suddenly aware in the moonlight of a yawning ravine directly under their tracks. ‘Good God, man. Be careful.’

‘Christ, sir. Sorry, that was a bit close.’

‘Too bloody close, Sarnt-Major. Let’s try and get there in one piece.’

Lamb wondered whether the rest of the battalion had made it across the Corinth canal before the German attack. He prayed that they had and would get away from the Peloponnese. But that was of no immediate concern to him and his men. From what Nichols had said, the Germans were advancing from two directions now. He had no doubt that they would soon complete their bridge across the canal.

He turned to Smart. ‘Have another go at raising Battalion on the wireless, Smart, will you?’

“I tried an hour ago, sir. There’s just no signal in the mountains.’

‘Well, have another go. You never know, do you?’

There was a click in the darkness and then the familiar hum of the set in its blackout cover as Smart began to talk into the hand-piece. After ten minutes he gave up. ‘Nothing, sir. I told you, it’s the mountains.’

Lamb nodded and pushed himself deeper into the seat, his hands tucked under his armpits for warmth. The next thing he knew, he was lifting his head, aware that he must have fallen asleep. He quickly took in their surroundings as one vine-covered hillside succeeded another. He looked at his watch. For almost half an hour, it seemed, he had been drifting in and out of sleep. They were all exhausted, of course, but he knew that they would have to find that extra ounce of strength if they were to get away.

Here the road to Athens was no more than a tiny, winding, dusty track crammed with refugees and soldiers: Greeks, Brits, Kiwis, Australians. Most were on foot and only the lucky few, like the Jackals, in trucks. Lamb and his men, scarves over their mouths and noses against the dust, drove on without lights, as ordered, their road lit only by the stars and the moon. Even so, they could barely see thirty yards in front of them. After Bennett’s near miss with the cliff edge, they drove at a tortuously slow pace over the next few miles of curling roads and ragged hills.

Lamb swore. ‘Damn this. Switch on the lights, Sarnt-Major, or the Jerries’ll be on our tails before we ever get to Athens.’

‘You sure, sir? We were ordered to …’

‘I know what the orders were. Switch the damn things on. They’ll see us in the daylight soon enough.’

Bennett switched on the lights, bathing the road ahead in a white glow, and moments later they began to accelerate. Clearly the men in the vehicles in front had had the same idea and were now some distance ahead.

Bennett grinned. ‘That’s more like it, sir. Permission to put my foot down.’

‘Permission?’

The Bren carrier lurched forward into full speed, which, although only some 30 miles per hour, after the appalling slowness gave the impression to its occupants that they were on the racetrack at Broadlands. The trucks behind them followed suit. It took them just over another hour to manage the thirty miles to the outskirts of Athens, and as they left behind the final range of hills Lamb relaxed. The road flattened out quickly now and became straighter. He had kept the map before him and continued looking up to verify their position. But when he did so this time, he gasped. For the dawn was with them now and the sun’s pink and orange rays began to pierce the night sky, falling upon the ancient capital and glinting off the whiteness of the Parthenon.

3

Athens was in chaos. The streets and boulevards, which only a week ago had seen the well-heeled drinking cocktails at the hotel bars and cafés filled with the locals, were now thronged with a quite different type of visitor. Refugees had of course been arriving in the city for more than a year, from Smyrna, Rumania, Russia, even Poland. But now the place seemed to Lamb to have become the hub of the world, brimming over with every nationality, and there was no mistaking the mood of the newcomers. The place stank of fear. The local people, though, seemed strangely sanguine.

Driving more slowly now into the ancient city, the company were greeted by several Greek civilians with a thumbs-up sign. It seemed bizarre to Lamb and singularly inappropriate.

Valentine, who, as he spoke Greek of a sort had transferred to the lead vehicle, whispered to him. ‘Sir, they think it’s the way we always greet each other.’

Lamb suspected, though, from their smiling faces that they might be some of the Greek fascists about whom they had been told. The streets were daubed with anti-Italian slogans but he wondered whether these men hadn’t come out from hiding in the expectation that soon their friends the Germans would be among them.

Most of the Greeks, however, he knew to be a proud people, and President Metaxas himself had refused the ultimatum to submit to Italian occupation. Unanimously Greece had united against the Axis when it had seemed that only Britain stood against Hitler and Mussolini. And now, thought Lamb, this is what they get for all that faith and defiance. We were put in here as a political move, and now, when they need us most, we’re leaving them, abandoning them to their fate.

The little convoy made slow progress, hampered by the press of civilians as they smiled and waved. A pretty, dark-haired girl with brown eyes stepped up to the carrier and planted a kiss on Bennett’s cheek. He shied away as the others laughed. Mays joked, ‘Oi. Careful, miss. He’s a married man.’

Funny, thought Lamb, how it feels as if we’re being welcomed as liberators, when they know all too well that we’re about to abandon them. What sort of people could they be to have such strength of spirit?

While he and every one of his men knew that time was of the essence, they were glad at least that there was no apparent present danger on the rooftops and in the streets of the ancient capital. The danger from the skies, of course, was ever-present.

Lamb was not sure quite where he was aiming for, but it had occurred to him that, with so many Allied soldiers trying to find senior officers, the British Legation might be a good alternative starting point for discovering a means of escape. He clutched his tattered and spineless copy of Baedecker’s Greece and thanked God he had brought it with him.

The Legation, he knew, was in the Hotel Grande Bretagne, and according to the book that was in Constitution Square. Turning left, they found themselves beside the terrace of a large building, Italian in style and baked by two centuries of sun. On the terrace in front, among the carefully manicured gardens, some steamer chairs lay broken and surrounded by empty wine bottles. The army’s been here, he thought. He sniffed, and Valentine saw him do it. ‘It’s gum, sir, that smell. Sap from the pines. Nice, isn’t it.’

Lamb turned to him, bemused. ‘Uh yes, very pleasant.’

‘It always says “Greece” to me, sir, don’t you agree?’

‘You know Athens well?’

‘Didn’t I tell you, sir? A trip to study the antiquities, when I was up at university.’

Lamb shook his head. ‘Where haven’t you been, Valentine? In that case you can point us in the direction of the British Legation.’

A few blocks on they found what he had been looking for. The Hotel Grande Bretagne was a huge neo-classical building built a little like a wedding-cake, with a colonnade of Romanesque arches running the length of the front. Lamb told the men to wait and, jumping down, climbed the steps to the massive entrance doors. Inside the place was in uproar. The air was filled with the stench of burning papers. The few civil servants still remaining ran from room to room. He tried to stop one of them but was brushed aside. Looking around he saw a sign: the words ‘Billiard Room’ had been crossed out and ‘Information Office’ written in. Lamb walked towards it and found himself at the rear of the old hotel. There was a large mirror on one wall, and catching sight of himself he was momentarily horrified at his appearance. His brown, almost black hair, which in peacetime and on leave had been cut in a neat, military style by Truefit and Hill, had grown ragged in the month since the regimental barber had last had a go at it. The stubble to which he had grown accustomed, shaving just once every four days to save water, had grown almost beard-like, and the face that it hid was sallow and despite the tan somehow pale. But it was his eyes which most shocked Lamb. They seemed sunk into their sockets, as if all the misery he had seen in the past few weeks was hidden in their depths. He looked away and carried on. At the end of the corridor was a green-painted door.

He knocked and, not waiting for a reply, went in. A bespectacled man in his late forties, in a black suit, aided by another, much younger, was shoving pile after pile of papers on to the fire, which was burning gloriously. He turned and saw Lamb, his face ruddy from the fire glow, his grey hair tousled to the point of absurdity.

‘Army? You’re not needed here. Your chaps have cleared out. I should find your own place. Wherever that is now.’

‘Sorry, sir. I was just trying to find out about transport and someone told me …’

‘Yes, that’s the trouble, you see, Captain. Everyone knows better than the other person. Everybody tells someone something but nobody has the right answer.’ He paused for a moment, distracted from the burning. ‘This is the British Legation, Captain, not the Quartermaster’s stores. We do not deal in matters of military transport. I have quite enough to do packing the place up before the Germans get here. Now please leave us alone and find your own people.’

Lamb nodded and left, closing the door on the scene as the man threw more papers on to the cheerfully blazing pyre.

Outside Lamb found the men waiting, eager-faced. ‘Sorry, no joy there I’m afraid. The top brass have cleared out and the place is full of pen-pushers from the consulate. And bloody rude ones at that. We’ll just have to make our own way.’

He was about to get back into the truck when he turned, distracted by the noise of a commotion across the square. A group of civilians were arguing. There was nothing so remarkable about that. The thing was that this group of people was so obviously English.

There were three men and a woman. One of the men was tall and well-built, another short, thin and bespectaled, the last squat and slightly overweight. They wore a variety of clothing – tropical suits, blazers and even an Argyle-patterned jersey. The fat man was dressed in an astrakhan coat and sweating profusely. The woman was dark-haired and wore a fur coat and a silk scarf. They stood around a pile of small but expensive-looking suitcases, a single cabin trunk and, bizarrely, a portable gramophone. A little moustachioed Greek in a shabby black suit, white shirt and black tie – presumably someone’s servant – hopped and muttered around them as if he intended to physically propel them out of the town and out of his responsibility.

Lamb stared at them. The British civilian population had reportedly been evacuated several days before and he was just puzzling as to what on earth they were still doing here when the woman saw him and fixed his gaze with her own. She had dark eyes and a shock of auburn hair, which fell in the style of a Hollywood star about her shoulders, spilling over her scarf and on to the collar of her coat. Lamb was transfixed by her eyes, like a rabbit in a spotlight, and before he knew it, as some predator might when focusing on its quarry, she was running across the square towards him.

‘Sorry, I’m so sorry. Can you help? We’re English. Well, most of us are. All apart from poor Mr Papandreou, who lost his wife in an air raid.’ She put out her hand and for a second Lamb wasn’t sure whether she expected him to kiss it or shake it. He chose the latter. ‘Sorry. Miranda Hartley.’

She spoke with a clipped voice that betrayed an upbringing in the home counties and for a moment Lamb was transported back in time to another world, the world of his ex-wife and her friends. Lamb was frozen, lost for words, but only for a second. ‘Yes. I can see that. I’m not sure …’

‘Where have you come from? Have you any news?’ She smiled. ‘I suppose you’re sworn to secrecy. Have you been … at the front?’

He looked at her and tried to work out what she might be doing here. Was she the wife of a diplomat? An aristocrat who had missed the boat? He muttered, ‘No, no news I’m afraid. No good news, at least. We’re just looking for a way out.’

She smiled. ‘So are we. We must get away before the Germans get here. My husband is very important. He’s a writer. A novelist. You’ve probably heard of him. Julian Hartley. Over there, with the glasses.’ She waited for the acknowledgement, the recognition, the nod of the head, but none came.

Lamb saw her disappointment. ‘Yes, of course. Julian Hartley. Yes, you must get away.’

‘We were here on a lecture tour, you see. Julian’s publisher’s idea. Good for his public image, and Julian took Classics at Magdalene. In fact he knows Greece quite well. Actually he desperately wanted to come back to find material for his next book. It’s set here, you see. Lovely story. We were guests with the university. That’s how we met Mr Papandreous. Well, of course, I just had to come. And then all this happened. But you know you have to admit it. The Greeks are pretty indolent, aren’t they. Don’t you think that Rome is by far the nobler civilisation? Il Duce wants to return them to that time.’

‘You admire Mussolini?’

She looked shocked. ‘Don’t you? You know he’s really done wonders for that country.’

‘But not too much for its army.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that. I’m not a soldier. Not like you. So you will help us, Captain?’

‘Well, I don’t really see how I can. You see I have orders. You know how it is.’

A man detached himself from the group and approached them, not her husband, the apparently famous writer, but a heavy-set man in his early thirties, dressed in white flannels and a blazer. A man, thought Lamb, dressed more for a riverside regatta than a war zone. He beamed at Lamb and spoke in a deep, self-consciously masculine voice, oozing confidence.

‘Comberwell. Freddie Comberwell. Have we met?’

Lamb did not make a habit of taking an instant dislike to people, but this man was an exception. Smiling, he shook his head. ‘No. I really don’t think so. Peter Lamb, North Kents.’

‘The Jackals. Golly. We are in safe hands. Seem to have got ourselves into a bit of a pickle. I was here on business, of course. I’m in oil. Cod liver oil. The Greeks can’t get enough of it. Worth a fortune. All those babies, you see. We actually had a factory here in Athens. Direct hit, wouldn’t you know it. It’s going to cost the company thousands. I’ve got to get home. Make my report. What a bloody shambles.’

This was becoming ridiculous, thought Lamb. The last thing he wanted was to find himself responsible for a bunch of civilians. Lamb went on, ‘Now look, I’m sorry but I have to reach my regiment in Egypt. I really don’t think …’

Comberwell was not to be dissuaded. ‘The thing is, old man, we’re really a bit stuck. Thought perhaps you might help.’

‘I’d love to, but as I was saying to Mrs Hartley I have orders. There’s nothing I can do. The British consul should be able to …’

Comberwell became agitated. ‘The consul’s gone. Didn’t you hear? Took a sea-plane to Alex yesterday. That’s why we’re stuck, old man.’

‘Isn’t there anyone else at the Legation?’

‘No, no one. We’ve been there. Just an odious little man called Dobson. Burning papers. Turned us away.’

Lamb nodded. ‘Yes, I met him too.’

‘Well, how do you suggest we are going to get out of here?’

Lamb shrugged. ‘I should get down to Piraeus, if I were you. The harbour. Get aboard whatever you can. There’s sure to be a boat.’

‘But what I mean is, how on earth are we going to get there?’

Lamb bit his lip and counted to ten. As he did so a stick of bombs fell less than half a mile inland in a series of explosions. Mrs Hartley jumped and gave a little shriek.

Lamb looked at Comberwell in desperation. ‘Oh, use your initiative, man, for God’s sake.’

He turned away in momentary disgust and despair. Very soon, he thought, this is the sort of man who if he manages to ever get back home is going to be conscripted into the army. And then God help us all. For the moment, however, the man is a helpless fool. If we leave him he will die, and who knows what will happen to the rest of them, including the woman.

The harbour quay and the beach below were filled now with soldiers, RAF ground crew by the dozen and all manner of civilians, all trying to find a ship or any other means of getting away from the Germans.

A New Zealand sergeant saw Lamb and spotted his pips. ‘You in charge, sir?’

‘No. Not really, Sarnt. Just trying to get my men away.’

‘Well, you’d better look sharp about it, sir. They’re only up the road. At Acharnes, someone said. The Jerries, that is. We’ve left the 4th Hussars as a rearguard and then they’ll just have to fend for themselves. Poor bloody cavalry. It’s another bloody balls-up.’

Lamb nodded. ‘Yes, Sarn’t. I think you may be right. Have you got a plan?’

‘We found some taxis parked up in the main square. A whole bloody fleet of them. I’d help you if we could, but they’re full already. I’ve got about 100 men to get away myself. You’re welcome to try your luck with our column, though, sir, if you’ve got your own transport. The harbour at Piraeus is fucked, though. Blown to shit. We’re off east to see if we can’t find a ship at Rafina. You might do the same, mate.’

Lamb bristled. ‘Thank you, Sarnt. I’ll take your advice. Good luck.’

‘Good luck, sir.’

On the corner of University Street a section of New Zealand infantrymen were setting up a machine-gun post, sandbagging it with sacks taken from the wall of a nearby café. Outside the same café several Greeks sat and watched the men at work, quietly drinking their coffee, saying nothing.

He turned to the men and then glimpsed the English beyond. They had stopped arguing now but were still talking. It was just too bad. He was an officer and, no matter what his personal feelings might be towards these misfits, his duty was to get his men to safety as soon as he could and back into action. As he was looking at the group a British major walked up to them, heading for the Hartleys. He was intercepted by Comberwell, who began to speak to him and pointed towards Lamb. The officer nodded and then spoke with Mrs Hartley. Then he looked across to Lamb and walked over.

‘Captain Lamb? Guy Whittaker, RHA. Look, I’ve a bit of a favour to ask you. Those people over there.’ He pointed to the British party.

‘Sir?’

‘You know who they are?’

‘Sir.’

‘Well, we really have to get them away. I know it may seem strange but Hartley’s quite a senior chap, actually. Friend of the GOC. At least their wives are buddies. The other chap I’m not concerned about, but he seems to have attached himself to them. Can you manage it?’

‘Is that an order, sir?’

The man looked at him, ‘Yes, you’d better take it as one. Don’t want to rattle the GOC, do we?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Fine, that’s settled then. Good luck.’

He walked back to the civilians and as he spoke to Miranda Hartley Comberwell turned to give Lamb a smile. Lamb strolled across to him, biting his lip.

‘Change of plan. I’ve been given orders to get you away. But I’m afraid you’ll have to look sharpish if you’re going to come with us.’

Comberwell smiled at him. ‘I say, that’s awfully decent of you. Righto. I’ll just find my kit.’

Lamb bristled. He seemed almost a caricature of an Englishman.

Hartley, the famous writer whose work he had never read, turned to Lamb. ‘It is frightfully decent of you. Let me buy you a drink. There’s a bar across the road. They’re bound to have some champagne. The good stuff.’

‘With respect, Mr Hartley, I don’t think this is quite the time. But that is very kind. Let’s postpone it till we’re all safe in Alex, shall we?’

‘Quite. Yes, of course, quite right. Should never have suggested it. Bad idea. Must get on and get your men away. Can’t keep the Jackals waiting. You know when I join up, which won’t be before long, I’m sure, I’ve half a mind to put in for a commission with your mob. Will you put in a word for me?’

Lamb looked at him. Could the man really be serious? Lamb wondered what the recruiting officer would say, and the adjutant for that matter. And then he realised that it was true, that before long men like Hartley, along with the bumptious idiot Comberwell, might be the only officers they had. ‘Yes, of course I will. Good show. I’m sure there’ll be no problem.’

Hartley turned to his wife. ‘Miranda, the captain here says he can get me a commission in the Jackals. Isn’t that splendid?’

Lamb muttered. ‘I didn’t actually say that I could do that. I will put a word in, of course.’

‘That would be so kind, Captain. I really don’t want Julian to fight, but if he must then … Well, he’s always wanted to be a soldier. Like Dr Johnson.’

They smiled at each other and Lamb began to wonder whether he might not have been rash in suggesting he might help them to get away. There was a respectful cough behind him and Lamb turned to see a corporal. Lamb returned the salute and, looking for his buttons, saw that he belonged to the Grenadier Guards, which was strange, as, to the best of his knowledge, there were no Guards units in Greece.

‘Captain Lamb, sir?’

‘Corporal.’

‘I’ve been sent to fetch you, sir. A matter of urgency. Would you come with me, sir?’

‘Where to, Corporal? On whose orders?’

‘My commanding officer, sir. It’s not far.’

Lamb called across to Charles Eadie. ‘Lieutenant, take command. I shan’t be long.’

He followed the corporal across the street and down an alleyway. ‘I hope this is not going to take long, Corporal. You do know that Jerry’s about to pay us a visit.’

‘Not long, sir, no.’

They kept walking at a brisk pace and eventually Lamb found himself in a back street that might have come from any eastern town. It reminded him of his one never-to-be-repeated visit to the Birkah in Cairo, with washing strung across the road and scantily clad women hanging out of the windows, touting for custom.

‘Where the hell have you brought me, Corporal? If this is some sort of practical joke I’ll have you …’

‘No joke, sir. Sorry, sir.’ The corporal pushed open a door. ‘The colonel’s just in here, sir.’

Glancing at the man, Lamb entered and followed the Guardsman into a house and down a narrow passageway. It was stiflingly hot, dimly lit by one bare light bulb and smelt of incense and spices, masking an underlying stench of disinfectant. They turned to the right and then left and at last the corporal pushed open another door. ‘Here we are, sir.’

Lamb walked in, past the corporal’s arm, and saw an officer sitting at a desk before him. Another soldier, a towering Grenadier warrant officer, was standing against one wall. The man looked up and Lamb recognised him instantly.

‘Hello, Peter. Do sit down. WO Pullen, would you leave us for a moment?’

The Guardsman nodded, ‘Sir,’ and walked smartly out of the room, closing the door behind him. Lamb seated himself on a small upright chair in front of the desk and looked at the man who had summoned him to this unlikely office.

He was a colonel, and even though he was sitting down it was obvious that he was a tall man, lean and fit with it. He smiled at Lamb and Lamb wanted to return the smile, but instead he frowned. For this was the man who had seen to his quick promotion, and it had been the colonel too who had suggested to Lamb that he might join that new elite unit. Lamb knew as soon as he saw him that an encounter with Colonel ‘R’ could only mean trouble. Particularly when he smiled.

The colonel spoke. ‘How wonderful to see you, Peter. I could hardly believe it when they told me you were in Athens. What a stroke of luck. About all we’ve had so far in this damned campaign.’

‘Yes, sir. It has been rather rough.’

‘Well, it’s going to get rougher. For all of us. Now you’re probably wondering why I called you here. And you’re probably thinking that I’ve hatched another mad plan.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The colonel smiled again. ‘Well, I’m afraid you’re absolutely right. Don’t worry. It’s nothing to do with Section D, and I don’t want you to join the commandos. Those are purely voluntary. You won’t need to leave your men. In fact they’re integral to the whole scheme.’

‘Sir, are you quite certain that you’ve got the right man?’

‘Absolutely. As I said, I couldn’t believe it when I heard you were here. Last-minute miracle. I was beginning to despair.’

‘Can I ask how exactly you did hear, sir?’

‘No. Not really. Let’s just say that someone whom you know, knows who you are. That is to say they knew that you were here. And they told me, and as soon as I heard that I had you brought here. That any clearer?’

‘Not really, sir. No.’

‘Well, that’s it. The walls have ears, you know, Peter. Can’t be too careful.’

‘Evidently not.’

It was instantly apparent to him that the colonel’s spy, whoever he or she was, had to be one of the British party. Either that or one of his own men, or most unlikely of all a Kiwi or an Aussie. He called to mind the civilians and had begun to wonder which one it could be before he realised that the colonel was speaking.

‘Now come on, Peter. There’s no need to be like that. This is hardly the man I know. The hero of St Valéry.’

‘Well, perhaps I’ve changed then, sir. Greece is a shambles.’

The colonel nodded. ‘Yes. I couldn’t agree more. And to stop it becoming an utter farce is the reason you’re here. What do you know about the Greek monarchy?’

‘Not much, sir. I know they’ve got a King at least and that he may be somehow related to Queen Victoria. And that he was deposed and then put back on the throne. That’s about it.’

‘That’ll do. For starters. They do have a King. King George II. And yes, you’re right, he was deposed and reinstated. And where do you suppose he is now?’

‘Probably en route to somewhere a long way away from here. We saw Prince Peter driving for the coast.’

‘Did you now? That’s the King’s cousin. Important chappie. In the Greek army. Liaison with us. Good sort. And yes, right again. The King is getting away. In fact …’ He looked at his watch. ‘By my reckoning he should be making landfall in Crete just about now.’

‘Crete, sir?’

‘Yes, island to the south of us.’

Lamb nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Delightful place. Stayed there myself once. Full of old buildings and ruins. Very important. Well, that’s where the King has gone to get away from Jerry. And well he might.’

‘Sir?’

‘Herr Hitler has seen fit to declare King George an enemy of the Greek people. Damned impertinence. An enemy of his own people! That little man has no concept of manners. Well, now. What I want you to do is to go to Crete and keep an eye on him.’

‘Keep an eye on him, sir?’

‘Yes. Just that. Well, a little more. Forget about going to Alex. Get yourself and your men off to Crete. Find the King as soon as you can. Don’t let him know what you’re there for until you’re needed. That’ll be soon enough. We want to try to keep the thing as hush-hush as we can. In fact you may not even have to meet him. Just keep yourself aware of where he is, and if the Germans invade the island be prepared to help with his evacuation. Is that clear?’

Lamb shook his head. ‘Quite clear, sir. You want me to babysit the King of Greece and if the Germans come for him help him escape to Egypt.’

‘Precisely. Although I wouldn’t say “babysit” was quite the right expression. “Unofficial bodyguard” is how I would put it.’

‘Without his knowing?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘You can’t.’ The colonel had stopped smiling now. ‘Try it and I’ll see to it that you lose your captaincy.’

‘Can you tell me why the King is so vitally important? Greece itself I think I can see. It’s part of Mr Churchill’s grand plan for a southern alliance against the Axis. But the King? Wouldn’t I be better off fighting?’

‘King George is a figurehead. Whatever Hitler might say, many of his people love their King. It’s equally obvious that the Führer loathes him. He’s 40, almost 41, and pretty fit. He trained with the Prussian army before the last war. His great grandmother was Queen Victoria and our own King calls him “cousin”. George and his father the King were exiled in 1917 and replaced by his brother Alexander and a republican government. But Alexander died, and by 1920 George and his old man were back by common vote. His father was deposed after being defeated by Turkey, and George was given the throne. Four years later he was out, and in 1932 settled in London at Brown’s Hotel. He divorced his wife in 1935 and the following year was back on the throne. There are no children. So. There you have it. There’s your charge, Peter.’

Lamb stared at him. He realised that this was a defining moment. His instinct was to say no and to suffer the consequences. He had doubted the integrity of the Greek campaign since the outset, and now this. This was politics. Hitler against Churchill. A spite match, with the King as pawn. The colonel watched him carefully. Gauged his unease.

‘Peter. Remember. When all this is over, when we’ve won the war, you’ll need people who can help. You’re a young man. Your whole future’s ahead of you. You’ll have done something good in the war, have already, but what will you do in the peace? I can help. I’m your guarantee of a future, Peter. You can still be someone when the lights go on again. Believe me, there will still be someone to fight, and I’ll be leading that crusade too. If that’s what you want then I’ll be right behind you. But only if you play along now. You know what the alternative means.’

Lamb thought for a moment. ‘All right. I’ll be your babysitter, sir. I’ll look after your King and I’ll do my best to get him out if the Jerries attack. Do you suppose they will?’

‘Yes, to be frank. But we don’t know for certain and we don’t know when. Good, I’m glad that’s settled. Now you had better go back and find your men before the Jerries get here. Pullen.’

The WO came through the door. ‘We’re pulling out of this dive. Escort Captain Lamb back to the town and let’s get ourselves off, shall we? Before Jerry walks in.’

Back in the square Lamb found the men milling around the tailgates of the trucks. Bennett stubbed out a cigarette. ‘Blimey, sir. You all right? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Yes, you’re not far wrong, Sarnt-Major. Come on, we need to get a move on. Get the civilians on first.’

The Hartleys, Comberwell and Papandreou and their retainers piled into the back of one of the trucks, and Lamb’s men followed suit. Looking at them again he wondered which of them had told the colonel of his presence and how.

Lamb opened the passenger door of the lead truck and climbed in. They started up and the little convoy began to clatter and jolt down the road through the city and out eastwards towards Rafina. Despite the streams of fugitives, it didn’t take them long.

Piraeus might well have been, as the Aussie sergeant had told him, ‘fucked up’, but as far as Lamb could see the little port of Rafina was certainly in a mess as well. The little harbour, normally more used to fishing boats, was now full of ships of all sorts, some of them half submerged, having been hit by the Luftwaffe. The water, usually clear blue, had turned a filthy black with the floating, charred wood from destroyed vessels, and everywhere, it seemed to Lamb, masts and funnels of ships poked through the oily scum of the surface. The cloying stench of oil and burnt wood was everywhere.

On shore most of the houses were in ruins, their rubble giving many of them the appearance of ancient monuments.

Valentine saw Lamb gazing at them. ‘I think I can guess your thoughts, sir.’

‘Really, Valentine, surprise me.’

‘You’re wondering whether this place will end up looking like the rest of ancient Greece. Whether it will sink back into antiquity where it lay for 2,000 years after the Peloponnesian wars, before we rediscovered it. That’s what war does, sir, isn’t it? Destroys civilisations.’

Lamb looked at him. ‘You’re right, actually. That was what I was thinking. But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it, Valentine? To stop this bloody war. To stop a German madman from destroying our own civilisation.’ He looked again at the shattered ships and houses. ‘Come on, let’s get going. Jerry can’t be far behind.’

A number of caiques, fragile-looking Greek fishing vessels with a sail and a small motor, were lying at anchor in the harbour. Most appeared to have been requisitioned by the army, and men and stores were being loaded aboard. One, though, no less ramshackle than the rest but marginally more seaworthy, caught Lamb’s eye. It bore the name Andromeda, which had been painted with some care by its owner on to a wooden sign on its bows along with a large all-seeing eye which gave it the appearance of a war galley. On its fore-deck he could see several khaki-clad figures tinkering with a deck-mounted Lewis gun – two British officers in shirt sleeves, a corporal and a handful of men. If that was the total on board then she would manage a few more bodies, he reckoned. Lamb walked over and stepped on to the deck. He walked over to the senior officer, a thin young captain with slicked-back dark hair. Lamb introduced himself.

‘Hello. Peter Lamb, North Kents. We’re trying to find a passage to Crete.’

The captain looked up from his work. ‘Toby Hallam, Queen’s Own Hussars, and this is Lieutenant Corrance, my 2/IC. We’ve twenty of our own men on board and a few Greek civvies, mostly women.’

Lamb noticed the lack of any offer of transport.

Hallam continued. ‘Most of this lot want to get to Alex. But it sounds like you’ve got the right idea. If we’ve got any chance at all with the bloody Luftwaffe up there on our tails, it’ll be to try for Crete. Some of our chaps are there already. They’ve stopped embarking men at Navplion now, and you know that Piraeus has had it.’

‘Yes. We didn’t really see any rearguard to speak of. Who’s holding the town? Is there a rearguard?’

‘First Rangers. At least that’s what I heard, and a squadron of the divisional cavalry, 4th Hussars, plus a few gunners and the Kiwis from the Hassani airfield. There’s a few stragglers too, mind. All the odds and sods. That’s all there is, though, between us and the Jerries.’

Lamb stared at him. ‘You’re probably right about Crete. We’d never make it to Alexandria alone. Not now, with the Luftwaffe in control of the skies.’

Hallam nodded. ‘Bloody Stukas. Did for seventeen of our light tanks three days ago. Not much bloody use, are we? Cavalry without any tanks? Bloody joke. God knows where the rest of my lot are.’ He paused, ‘Do you know how many ships we’ve lost in the past few days?’

‘No.’

‘Well,’ he hesitated ‘… nor do I, exactly, but I can tell you it’s one hell of a lot, and I for one don’t intend to join them. It’s Crete for me.’ He paused again and then added, by way of an afterthought, ‘Though I dare say that once the Jerries have Greece that’ll be next on their list. You can come along if you like. I should if I were you. I should think we’ll cram you in. According to the admiral down there the convoy sails at 3 a.m. So the last boat has to leave the beach by 2.15.’

‘That’s very good of you. Crete it is then. I’ll tell my men, shall I? You do have room for us?’

The captain looked at the lieutenant and shrugged, then turned back to Lamb. ‘Don’t see why not. How many have you got?’

‘About forty, including a few British civilians.’

‘That’s fine. We could do with some help on the guns. Dare say we’ll need it when the Jerries spot us in the middle of the Med.’

Lamb walked back to the trucks. ‘Everybody out. We’re going to Crete.’

Bennett smiled. ‘Crete, sir? I thought we were headed to Alex.’

‘Change of plan, Sarnt-Major. Only ship we can get is going to Crete. So that’s where we’re going.’

Comberwell was at his elbow. ‘Crete? I say, Lamb, that’s impossible. I mean, that’s just not on.’

Lamb turned on him. ‘Sorry? Not on? Mr Comberwell, do I have to remind you that you’re damned lucky to be getting away at all? We are going to Crete. And if you want to come with us, then that’s where you’re going too.’

Comberwell smiled. ‘Yes. Of course, Captain. I’m so sorry. Didn’t mean to make a fuss. Just came out. I was so looking forward to going to Alex. Drinks at the Cecil and all that, you know?’

‘Yes. I know. All that.’

Lamb turned away. The beachmaster, a commander in the Royal Navy equipped with a megaphone, was barking orders to a group of New Zealand infantry on the quay, trying to get them to move more quickly on to the tug which would take them out to a waiting destroyer.

‘Come on, you men. Keep going there. Keep it going.’

Some of them called back. ‘All right, Popeye. Keep your ’at on.’

‘Where’s yer bloody parrot?’

Lamb smiled and called to his own men, directing them on to the Andromeda. ‘Get on the ship. Quick as you can, boys. Make it snappy. Sarnt-Major, make sure we don’t take on anyone else. The civilians and our own men, and that’s it. That’s all we have room for. And for God’s sake keep the noise down. If we make too much of a din you can be sure Jerry will get upset and send the Stukas back.’

It was only half a joke. They wanted to make sure they did not attract enemy attention sooner than was inevitable.

As the men filed aboard, Lamb saw that the ship anchored alongside the Andromeda was also filling up. On the beach below the harbour Lamb could see another party waiting its turn for the tug. Some of them were standing up to join the queue, which was moving with incredible slowness. Among them, a group of men, Australians by the look of them, seemed to be drunk. One man in particular was singing, some ribald ballad that was barely discernible but included a few recognisably filthy lyrics. The worst thing was that he was singing it at full volume. That and the fact that he was tone deaf.

As Lamb looked on he heard the harbourmaster again. ‘Someone shut that man up there. The Jerries are at the city gates. Keep it quiet, can’t you?’

A British officer wearing the single crown of a major walked down the gangplank that led to the tug. As Lamb watched, he went up to the group of Aussies and told them in measured tones to be quiet. The men laughed and the singer cranked up the volume and began again. The officer smiled and repeated his order. Most of the men shut up and looked resentful and Lamb wondered what else the officer had said, but the singer began his song again and now he was really belting it out, at the top of his voice. As Lamb looked on the officer took out his service revolver from the holster at his side and in a single, fluid motion, before anyone could stop him, put it against the singer’s head and pulled the trigger. The far side of the man’s head disintegrated in a spray of blood. There was a pause and then the body crumpled to the beach, the blood seeping into the sand. The officer muttered something, and before the others could do or say anything he was walking back up the gangplank on to the tug. The other drunks, recovering themselves, began to shout and scream at the man and rushed the gangplank, but the officer had turned to face them now and they could see that behind him stood a guard of half a dozen helmeted men, neat as new pins, their rifles levelled and ready to fire. The soldiers turned away and went to bury their dead friend.

Bennett shrugged. ‘Bloody shame, sir. Mind you, he had it coming. Don’t give much for that major’s chances, though, once they get away, sir.’

Lamb banished his natural revulsion at what he had just witnessed. ‘No, but it had to be done. The bloody noise was putting everyone at risk. Anyway, I don’t think he plans to take them.’

As they watched, the harbourmaster held up his hand to stop the line of downcast, shuffling men and the gangplank was raised and flung aboard the tug, which began to pull away from the harbour. The men turned around and walked slowly away from the quay as the harbourmaster began to look for the next vessel.

Back on the Andromeda, what remained of Lamb’s company was almost aboard now and Hallam was busy with his own men. The civilians too were moving on. He heard Comberwell call out to them. ‘All aboard the skylark!’

Lamb watched as Eadie and Wentworth directed their platoons.

They had both come on since Egypt. Greece had made officers of them and he wondered what the future now held, what Crete would bring. From his vantage point on the harbour quayside, the beachmaster had spotted another ship and was motioning the desultory queue of men forward once again. As he did so, another, smaller ship caught Lamb’s eye, a caique like their own, which was moored just beyond where the tug had been berthed.

It was slightly smaller than the Andromeda and the deck was crowded with people, sitting, standing and pressed against the sides. They seemed to be mostly civilian and among them were a number of British.

A naval officer on deck in white shirtsleeves and shorts was shouting orders to a crew who included several civilians in shirts and flannels, while an English woman in a smart, floral-printed frock and a slouch hat was attempting to herd four terrified children on to the tanker with the help of a Chinese amah. A greyhound was pacing the deck nervously, held by another servant.

On the fore-deck nearest to Lamb a young man in army uniform but without any clear insignia was trying to take charge of two others. ‘Come on there, Charles, try to untie her. Peter, get that gun into action, can you. Get it loaded. We might be bombed at any time.’

He watched as the man referred to as Peter tried to secure a Lewis gun to a mounting, aided by a private. Three times they attempted to fix it to the base plate but it was only on the fourth that they succeeded.

Standing on the deck of the Andromeda, Lamb noticed for the first time the heavy swell that was rocking the boat. He had never been a particularly good seaman and hoped that the crossing would not prove too nauseous. He imagined, though, that seasickness would be the least of their problems.

He shouted to Bennett. ‘Finish getting them on board, Sarnt-Major. Captain Hallam’s in charge now. It’s his ship. Report to him. Don’t stow your gear. Every man must keep his own to hand in case we have to abandon ship.’

Miranda Hartley walked up to him, swaying with the motion of the boat.

‘I say, it’s a little choppy, isn’t it? Still, we can’t have everything. So clever of you to help us, Captain. Don’t know what we’d have done. How long do you think it will take us to get to Crete?’

‘I’m afraid I have no idea, Mrs Hartley.’

‘Miranda, please.’

‘Captain Hallam might know. He’s in charge of the vessel. He’s over there.’ He pointed, hoping to deflect her attention.

‘Well, we’ll just have to sit it out and be jolly brave, shan’t we.’

The sun had gone now and the harbour was lit by the moon, giving an eerie light to the figures who went to and fro about their duties on the deck. Lamb looked at his watch. It was nearing 11 o’clock, so there were another four hours until they sailed. He wondered if they would have that long before the Germans broke through the city and whatever scant defences there were left. Out on the sea he could see the looming shape of a transport ship and several destroyers, waiting to take on more men. Lamb paced the deck and looked at his watch. The minute hand had moved on four places since he last looked. This he knew to be a pointless exercise. He found Bennett. ‘How are we, Sarnt-Major? All squared away?’

‘Good as, sir. Men are dog tired, sir. There’s some asleep already.’

‘The more that sleep, the better. Especially in these seas. You should get some shut-eye too.’

‘I will, sir. When the time comes.’

There was a huge explosion from behind them and they both turned and saw the silhouette of the port and the ancient city beyond lit up by a ghastly combination of moonlight and the flames from burning houses. The light fell too on the harbour and they caught sight of the staring, static figures of the men, hundreds of them, who had not as yet found sanctuary on a ship.

‘Poor buggers,’ said Bennett. ‘Funny, innit. War, I mean, sir. How some get away and some don’t. I mean there’s got to be losers. Sometimes, though, it don’t half make you feel guilty. I mean, why me and not them?’

Lamb laughed. ‘Ask yourself that, Sarnt-Major, and you’ll end up going mad. And what’s more, you’ll go and get yourself killed.’

As they watched, the beachmaster barked again, and the long line of the damned and the passed-over followed the orders from the area commander and began to move to the low ridge on the southern edge of the beach. And there, in the shelter of the laurels, the myrtles and the olive trees, they took cover and looked to the dark horizon for the return of the ships.

Three hours and a mile and half out to sea later, Bennett stood with Lamb at the rail, looking back at the shrinking coast of the mainland of Attica. ‘Just like St Valéry, sir, ain’t it? An’ all in the nick of time again. You could hear them Jerry guns getting closer and closer. I can tell you, sir, more than once I thought we’d all be in the bag.’

Lamb nodded. ‘Me too, Sarnt-Major. We’ve been lucky so far. And yes, I do have a sense of déjà vu. The only worry is, and make no mistake, it is a real worry, that this time we’re not heading back to the safety of home. We’re bound for an island in the middle of the Med, and it’s my guess that very soon that place too is going to be very far from safe. And if you ask me, the sooner we get off that island and across to Alex, the better.’

4

He woke at dawn, as the sun’s rays touched the deck of the caique and he sensed their warmth as they crept their way slowly up his sleeping face. Lamb shook himself awake and moved his aching shoulders. He had slept on deck from choice, given the heavy swell and his poor record of seafaring, but his attempts to create a passable bunk by laying his battledress tunic and a blanket on the slimy wooden boards had had little effect. His body felt as though he had slept on rocks.

He had woken with a start at some point during the night and had felt utterly alone and strangely frightened. He was not immune to the feeling, of course. Felt it always before any action. Would have questioned any man who said he didn’t. But that was something you learnt to conquer. This fear was something else: a fear in the night, lonely and hopeless and cold on the darkened deck of their boat in the middle of the sea. To conquer it he had thought of home. Of Kent in summer and cricket, beer and racing through the lanes on his old motorbike. The fear had passed and he had slept then, praying for the dawn. And now he should have been glad of it, but he knew that while the night had felt more vulnerable the real danger came with the light.

Lamb got to his feet and steadied himself on the rail. Looking around he saw nothing but empty sea. Ahead of them, lying on the surface, lay a bank of fog, or it might simply have been the mist of early morning. Instantly his fears of the night returned for, as he had imagined, their ship was apparently quite alone. The convoy with which they had sailed had gone, it seemed, and with it their greatest defence against air attack. Lamb turned to Hallam. ‘We’ve lost them. The bloody convoy. It’s gone.’

Hallam yelled back. ‘No fault of mine, Lamb. I told you, I’m no sailor. I did my level best.’

Lamb swore. Of course the man was no sailor, he was a cavalryman. But then neither was he. Another two hours and the mist began to lift and Lamb realised that without it they were sitting ducks for the Luftwaffe.

There was still no sign of the convoy and he wondered how far they were from Crete. The sea was calmer now, but his head was reeling with the motion of the boat. So much so in fact that he was not sure, later, whether he had heard the noise first or seen the black speck in the sky. It was Eadie, though, who shouted first. ‘Aircraft. Get down.’

Lamb stared at the approaching black dot. It was hopeless. In a few seconds the fighter would be upon them, and then it would just be a matter of time. For all their Lewis guns they were defenceless against an Me109, and God knew what other planes were close behind it. And then, in a split second, he had it.

He looked around. How many of them were up top? About half his men and a good dozen of the hussars, including Captain Hallam. The British civilians had chosen to take their chances in the hold. On the deck, though, was a party of Greek civilians on whom Hallam had taken pity at the last minute before they set sail.

He yelled. ‘All you men, down below. Now. All of you.’

There was a frantic scramble. Still the plane was a black dot, but it was getting bigger with every second. The men threw themselves down the hatches and Lamb turned to the Greeks. Hallam saw him. ‘Lamb?’

He shouted back. ‘Down. Get in the hold.’

Not questioning him, the cavalryman slipped down the narrow ladder and was gone just as Lamb began to speak. ‘All of you.’ He had no Greek, he gestured. A waving gesture. Desperate. What to say? Where was Valentine? He looked into the sky. The plane was almost above them now. Lamb flung himself into the top of the hatch and collided with Valentine, who was climbing out on to the deck, his head and shoulders covered with a black scarf. He brushed past Lamb, then turned and spoke quickly in Greek to the women, as Lamb ducked into the hatch.

The Messerschmidt fighter came in over the mast and as it did so it dropped its height and swooped down over the little boat. Lamb, his head just below the opening, froze. He saw Valentine, sitting alongside the Greek women, his head still covered in the scarf.

Obeying Valentine to the letter, the women in the front looked up and waved. Valentine too. The plane passed and Lamb watched it go. But then, to his horror, he saw the plane bank and then turn. It was returning now, diving straight towards them at greater speed, and he thought, This is it. You are going into your attack dive. On it came, and any second he waited for the machine-guns to open fire. But instead the pilot rolled his wings and as he passed them came close enough so that they could see him wave back. Then, as Lamb watched the German fighter turn tail and run, he pushed up through the hatch, his feet slipping on the steps, and found Valentine. ‘Valentine, you’re a bloody marvel. You had the same idea. Did you see him?’

‘Yes, sir. Only too pleased to help. It’s easier if you speak the lingo.’

‘Well, we’d better keep an eye out. He may have bought it but I’m not convinced that he won’t be back with some of his mates.’

However, another two hours came and went and neither the fighter nor any of his mates returned.

The sun was high in a cloudless sky now and Lamb leant against the painted rail of the ship’s forward deck and peered at the sight that was gradually unfolding before him. There were other men at the rail now, pointing and chattering, as yard by precious yard, across the azure sea, the coast of Crete drew closer. What had first been merely the line of a land mass soon became an island and Lamb was able to make out a town with whitewashed houses. He saw lush avenues of green, poplars and lemon trees, and imposing larger villas. On the slopes behind the town endless rows of olive groves stood in knotted groups amid the vineyards. He could see the quay now, already a mass of ships, men and material. In the distance, beyond the White Mountains, the rising sun pushed higher in the sky with a crimson light – a surreal, theatrical backdrop to this scene of ethereal beauty. Lamb was aware of a presence to his right. Charles Eadie, puffing on a heavily scented cigarette.

‘Pretty sight, sir, isn’t it?’

‘Very pretty, Charles. Just like a picture postcard. You know I’ve always wanted to visit the Mediterranean islands. Ever since I was a boy. Must have been all that Homer at school.’

Eadie laughed. ‘Oh yes, the Greek myths, sir. Odysseus and all that stuff. My favourite was the one about the Cyclops. You know that giant of a chap who lives in the cave and only has one eye.’

‘And ends up by eating half of Odysseus’ crew before he’s killed. Yes, I think that’s one of mine too. I wonder how many of our lot have got away from Greece to here. There seem to be a hell of a lot of ships in the harbour.’

‘I expect we’ll be off to Alex soon, sir, anyway, won’t we? You never know, you might be able to get a bit of sightseeing in. You know, ancient ruins and all that.’

‘Yes. I believe the palace of Knossos is rather special. They’ve been digging it up for years. Some English professor.’

They were suddenly conscious at that same moment of a humming noise and both knew instantly what it was as it built above them in the sky. Lamb shouted, ‘Aircraft, get down,’ and instinctively every one of the men and women on board the Andromeda cowered and sheltered their heads with their hands, waiting for the scream of the siren as the Stukas fell upon them. But none came. Instead, the noise passed over them. Lamb raised his head and saw silhouetted against the brightening sky the shape of two Hurricanes, bearing the tricolour target roundels of the RAF, which as they passed over the ships off the coast tipped their wings from side to side in salute.

‘Thank God, sir. They’re British. I never thought I’d feel safe again.’

‘Well, I shouldn’t depend on feeling that way for too long, Charles. It’s my honest opinion that what just flew over our heads might well be the entire air defence capability of this island.’

The ship drew closer to the island and as it did so Lamb was quickly aware that his vision of Eden was not quite as serene as it might at first have seemed. Gazing at the clear blue waters near the shore he could now make out that one of the ships which he had presumed to be riding at anchor was actually tilted at an awkward angle. Her bridge had been blown away and there was a huge gaping hole in her forward deck. He looked to his right and saw another wreck, a tanker. Squinting, he was able to make out the lettering on her hull: Eleanora Maersk. There was smoke coming from her decks and now and then he saw a lick of flame. There were other ships too: half-submerged Royal Navy vessels, caiques and smaller boats, funnels and masts protruding from the water and debris. He stared down as they passed by one of the hulks and saw that what he had presumed to be driftwood was in fact a dead body, bloated and floating face down. He realised that the sea was full of them and that there was nothing that could be done to clear them. As they drew closer the smell which had begun to permeate the air of burnt metal and wood, cordite and oil grew stronger and he felt at first just nauseous, then suddenly cold and filled with a sense of foreboding. Prompted by Eadie, his schoolboy Greek mythology came back to him again and for an instant he thought of Charon, ferrying the dead in his boat across the river Styx to Hades.

He turned to Eadie. ‘I say, Charles, you haven’t got one of those fags to hand, have you?’

The lieutenant clicked open his silver cigarette case and offered it to Lamb, who drew out a thin white cigarette from behind the elastic strip.

‘Turkish?’

‘Egyptian, actually,’ said Eadie. ‘Got them from an old Jew in Cairo. Damned good smoke, sir. Hard to find.’

Lamb lit up and puffed away, his nerves calmed by the sweet smoke. Within minutes they were through the ghastly debris. Lamb let his gaze drift to the quay, which appeared to be littered with military equipment and stores of every kind, from lorries and miscellaneous crates to ammunition boxes, stacks of artillery shells and even a single light tank around which a crowd of local boys had gathered. Beyond the town he could see quite clearly now rolling farmland rising away to the south towards the snow-crested White Mountains.

Many ships clustered in the bay, some afloat, others resting on the shallow bottom – further evidence of enemy air activity. He couldn’t help but allow himself a feeling of relief at having eluded the enemy on the mainland, and in the fresh morning sunshine he knew that his troops, though very weary, were in the same good spirits. They were almost at the quay now and he could see that it was thronged with locals and men in khaki of all descriptions going about their duties with ant-like precision and purpose.

Valentine had joined them close to the rail and stood staring at the closing coastline, and then without warning burst into verse.

‘The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!

Where burning Sappho loved and sung.

Where grew the arts of war and peace,

Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!

Eternal summer gilds them yet,

But all, except their sun, is set.’

He finished and waited for a comment, but none came. ‘That’s Byron, sir.’

‘Indeed.’

‘I just thought it somehow appropriate for our situation, sir.’

‘Which is?’

‘Well, as I see it, sir, the sun is going down on this little part of civilisation. The cradle of civilisation if you like, sir.’

‘You think too much, Valentine.’

‘Yes, sir. Terribly sorry, sir.’

A tug drew alongside them and a naval officer yelled at them through a megaphone. ‘Ahoy. See that caique, tied up to the quay? Moor alongside her and disembark across her. Is that clear?’

Hallam called back. ‘Quite clear, thank you.’

Their boat drew up alongside the caique and, once the crew had fastened the two together with ropes, they began to move across. Lamb turned to the men on deck. ‘Sarnt Mays, take your section off first and form a guard. Civilians off next, and then the rest of you, by section.’

Mays led his men off and over the floating dock. Once ashore, they fanned out either side of the gangway. Lamb watched Miranda Hartley and the others step gingerly from their boat on to the caique and walk across its rocking deck before going down the gangway. They stepped ashore as if they were leaving a P&O cruise liner. He half expected to see her turn to Hallam and shake his hand to thank him as she might the liner’s captain. Then, in as orderly a manner as possible, the rest of them followed.

There was a sudden wailing. Air-raid sirens. Lamb craned his neck and scanned the skies but saw nothing. Nevertheless the ack-ack guns on shore in their little sandbagged half-moons opened fire. Mays’ section ducked instinctively and the civilians looked up to see the danger but to his surprise none of the crowd on shore seemed very concerned and the khaki figures carried on about their business. The sirens stopped as abruptly as they had begun and the guns ceased a few seconds later. More wasted ammunition, thought Lamb. And why? Because, he guessed, some jittery young artillery spotter in a slit-trench on a hill outside the town had thought he had seen a Jerry plane. It had probably been a seagull.

Lamb found Hallam by the mooring. ‘Thank you. You got us all here safely.’

‘No thanks to me. I lost the convoy, didn’t I?’

‘Probably sailed straight on to Alexandria. But it was your work that got us here.’

‘Perhaps, but it was thanks to your sergeant that we weren’t shot to pieces. He’s an extraordinary man, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, he is. That’s one word for it. But anyway, thank you. What will you do now?’

‘Try to find a tank if I can. I reckon a few of our mob will be here already. I’m sure to find them. They’re not very good at keeping out of mischief, especially in a place like this.’

Lamb walked down the gangway and no sooner had his feet touched the stone of the quayside than he heard a voice shouting. He looked around.

A neatly turned out British staff officer in a peaked cap liberally adorned with brass was addressing Mays’ section. ‘Pile any heavy weapons over there, you men. Everything but rifles and side arms. Over there. We’re going to pool all the heavy weapons. Orders from the GOC.’

Bennett looked at Lamb and raised an eyebrow before taking him aside and speaking to him quietly.

‘Things must be bad, sir. But I’ll be damned if I’m giving up the Lewis guns. I thought this might happen, sir. Took the precaution of having them dismantled. We’ve got a piece each, all us NCOs. We took the ones from the boat too, sir. Course we’ll have to leave the mortars. Can’t do much with them.’

‘Well done, Sarnt-Major. Quite right. Important to keep something with us. Hand them in now and we’ll never see them again. Whose brilliant idea was this, I wonder? No one will notice. Stubbs will be furious about his precious mortars, though.’

The last men off were unloading what few pieces of everyday kit they had managed to bring away from the mainland, which consisted mainly of blankets and rations, and a box of company documents including maps and a copy of King’s Regulations, along with the civilians’ travelling cases.

The crowd of Cretans that had gathered on the quayside moved towards them now and Lamb saw they were holding objects in their hands. One of the women, an elderly matron in a black dress and shirt, caught his arm and, saying something in a guttural Greek dialect he had never before encountered, smiled at him toothlessly as she pressed something into his palm. Lamb looked down and saw it was an orange. He saw other girls and women giving his men and others newly arrived on the quayside ceramic bowls of milky-white ice cream and spoons with which to eat it. At first the men just stared at them in disbelief, but it did not take long for them to accept the gifts. Lamb said thank you to the old woman, who nodded before turning and walking back to her house, just as if this was something she did every day.

Miranda Hartley came up to him. ‘Ice cream and fruit. They seem very pleased to see you, Captain.’ She spotted the orange in his hand. ‘I say, do you want your orange?’

‘No, you have it, please.’

Bennett found him as he handed it to her. He gestured to the men who were greedily eating the ice cream. ‘Sir, is this all right by you?’

Lamb smiled. ‘Fine, Sergeant. Of course. For all we know the men might not see oranges or ice cream again for a very long time. Let them take it if they want.’

Mrs Hartley, he saw, was already tucking into his own orange and at least half of him wished he hadn’t given it to her. Valentine saw him. ‘It’s all right, sir. I’ve got two. Have one of mine.’

Lamb took the orange and, peeling it quickly, began to bite into the juicy flesh and pith, savouring it as he had enjoyed no orange before.

The staff officer, a major, walked over to Lamb. He was holding a large pad and a pencil. ‘And who are you, Captain? Where have you come from?’

Lamb swallowed hard on a piece of orange and tucked the rest behind his back. ‘Lamb, sir. Captain Peter Lamb. A Company, North Kents. We’ve come from Athens, sir.’

‘North Kents.’ He jotted it down on his pad. ‘From Athens. Yes, you will have done. Well done, Captain. Well, now you’re in Creforce holding Area A. Take your men off up that road there. How many are you?’

‘Forty men, sir. We’ve lost a few. We fought through Greece.’

The major ignored the last comment and pointed to the east. ‘Take yourselves off up that road there and make camp in one of the olive groves. If you can find one, that is. We’ve got thousands of chaps like you. Odds and ends. Don’t worry. We’ll decide what to do with you and where to send you soon enough. We’re building a transit camp up at Perivolia. But you know what the army’s like, Captain. For the moment I should just make camp. And do keep your men in control, Captain, if you can. There are some men out there – Australians and New Zealanders mostly – wandering through the vineyards and taking the law into their own hands. It’s a nightmare, I can tell you. And it makes my job no easier.’

‘We have some civilians with us, sir. British. A woman and three men.’ He indicated Miranda Hartley. ‘Where are they to go?’

‘They’ll have to fend for themselves, I’m afraid, British or not. Too many civilians here too now, and no legation. Nothing. Can’t help everyone, you know. Enough to sort out with you lot. Just find yourselves an olive grove and await further orders. I’m off to the GOC. More bloody paperwork, I expect.’

And with that he was gone. Lamb stared after the man as he rounded on some other hapless new arrivals. He began again on the orange, and as he chewed Miranda Hartley came over. ‘I say. What luck. A friend of Mr Papandreou’s says we can stay with him. In his villa. Isn’t that nice? Where are you staying?’

‘To be honest, I was just wondering the same thing myself.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll find some lovely house somewhere. You officers always land on your feet.’

There was a loud and insistent ‘parp’ from a car horn. ‘That’ll be for me, I expect. Better go. Mustn’t keep them waiting. See you soon, I hope, Captain. And thank you for all your help.’

She shook his hand and then ran off towards where Hartley and the others were waiting in two long, elegant, highly polished convertibles. Watching her go, Lamb smiled and summed up their current situation to himself.

They were standing on a narrow harbour-front street of Italianate villas with neat, walled gardens of palm and lemon trees. Two cafés sat directly opposite each other on a corner, their gaudy awnings draped over rows of empty chairs. The larger of the two bore a sign: ‘Plaza Bar Tourist Hotel’. Lamb pointed to it. ‘Sarnt-Major. Ten minutes’ rest. Sit the men down over there.’

‘All right you lot. Ten minutes. Savvy?’

As the men fell out and rested on chairs which until only recently had been occupied by holidaymakers, Lamb turned. ‘Valentine, you seem well versed in the area. Tell me exactly where we are.’

‘Place called Canea, sir. It’s an old Venetian trading port. Popular with the tourist trade. Very picturesque.’

‘So I see. Where’s Mr Wentworth?’

‘Over there, sir. Eating an ice cream.’

Lamb walked across to the lieutenant. ‘Wentworth, are we all present and accounted for?’

Wentworth, who was licking slowly at a spoonful of ice cream, straightened up. ‘I think so, sir.’

Lamb smirked. ‘Think so is not quite what I asked, Lieutenant. What are our numbers?’

‘Thirty-eight, sir. But we have five walking wounded and six with dysentery.’

‘Right. So effective strength of twenty-seven.’

‘Sir.’

His company had become a platoon. They were low on rations, had ragged uniforms and few of them were properly armed.

‘Weapons?’

‘We’re missing twelve rifles. But we do still have the Brens and the two Lewis guns from the boat.’

He looked at his men. Most, like him, had not shaved for more than a week and the tired, drawn faces and sunken eyes told their own tale of what they had witnessed. As if to emphasise their state, at that moment around the corner came a platoon of British soldiers. They were marching in time, in a column of twos, with a sergeant-major at their head and to the right. As they passed several of Lamb’s men gave them a wolf-whistle but the soldiers did not even look towards them. Lamb searched their uniforms for insignia.

Fred Smart was standing beside him. ‘Blimey, sir. Who the hell’s that lot? The Coldstream Guards?’

‘No, Smart. I would hazard a guess that that’s the Welch Regiment. They’re the official Crete garrison. Well, part of it at least. They weren’t in Greece.’

‘I should coco. Sorry, sir.’

They might look, he thought, as if they had just come off parade at Horse Guards, but Lamb was grateful for their presence and their appearance. It brought him back to order. And despite the wolf-whistles he knew it was just what was needed to restore his men’s confidence in the army. And they desperately needed that now.

Having reached the quayside, the newcomers stopped and divided into three sections, one of which moved across to Lamb. Their sergeant approached him.

‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but you would be new arrivals, would you?’ He spoke with a just discernible Welsh accent.

‘Yes, Sarnt. Just got here.’

‘Did you see the major, sir?’

‘Yes, thank you, Sarnt. I saw the major.’

‘Well, sir, he will have told you, I’m guessing, to go up that road there to the olive groves. Didn’t he? It’s a good mile, sir.’

Lamb smiled. He knew that ‘a good mile’ meant an ‘army mile’, and an army mile meant any distance you wanted it to mean.

The man continued. ‘You’ll find a lovely field kitchen, sir, up there. It’s not that far. Each of your men will get a nice mug of tea, some bread and cheese, an orange, some chocolate and some fags. You too, if you want them, sir. The assembly points and your bivvy area will be about seven miles farther on, isn’t it.’

Lamb wondered if the sergeant meant seven ‘good miles’.

‘Thank you, Sarnt. That’s very clear. We’ll set out in five minutes. I’m just letting the men have a rest. We’ve had a bit of a journey.’

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