Turkish. So Mussolini’s Blitzkrieg would have to attack down the narrow valleys, protected by Alpini troops occupying the heights above them. Which might have worked out but for the Evzones, one regiment of them opposing the Alpini division.
The Greeks, contrary to Italian expectations, fought to the death.
Took terrible casualties, but defeated the Alpini, who broke and fled back toward the Albanian border. Now the Greeks held the mountains and when the Centauri came roaring down the valleys two things happened. First, many of the tanks plunged into a massive ditch that had been dug in their path, often winding up on their backs, and second, those that escaped the ditch were subject to shelling from above, by short-barreled, high-wheeled mountain guns. These guns, accompanied by ammunition, had been hauled over the mountains by mules and then, when the mules collapsed and died of exhaustion, by men.
As the first week in November drew to a close, it was clear that the Italian invasion had stalled. Mussolini raged, Mussolini fired generals, Greek reinforcements reached the mountain villages, and it began to snow. The unstoppable Axis had, for the first time, been stopped. And of this the world press took notice: headlines in boldface, everywhere in Europe. Which included Berlin, where these developments were viewed with, to put it mildly, considerable irritation. Meanwhile, poor Mussolini had once again been humiliated, and now the Greek army was poised to enter Albania.
In Trikkala, an ancient town divided by a river, the snow-capped peaks of the Pindus Mountains were visible when the sun came out. Which, fortunately, the first week in November, it did not do. The sky stayed overcast, a solid mass of gray cloud that showered down an icy rain. The sky stayed overcast, and the Italian bomber pilots, at the airfields up in Albania, played cards in their barracks.
The Salonika communications unit was at least indoors, having bivouacked in the local school along with other reservists. They’d stacked the chairs against the wall and slept on the floor. Dry, but bored. Each member of the unit had been armed for war by the issue of a blanket, a helmet, and a French Lebel rifle made in 1917. The captain took Zannis aside and said, “Ever fire one of these?”
“No, never.”
“Too bad. It would be good for you to practice, but we can’t spare the ammunition.” He chambered a bullet, closed the bolt, and handed the weapon to Zannis. “It has a three-round tube. You work the bolt, look through the sight, find an Italian, and pull the trigger. It isn’t complicated.”
There was, that first week, little enough to do. The General Staff was based in Athens, with a forward position in Janina. But if things went wrong at Janina they would have to serve as a relay station, take information coming in over the telephone-the lines ended at Trikkala-and transmit it to front-line officers by wireless/telegraph. “We are,” the captain said, “simply a reserve unit. And let’s hope it stays that way.”
As for Zannis, his liaison counterpart from the Yugoslav General Staff was apparently still trying to reach Trikkala. Where he, if and when he ever showed up, could join the unit in waiting around. Yugoslavia had not entered the war. In the past, Greeks and Serbs had been allies in the First Balkan War in 1912, and again in the Balkan campaigns against Germany, Bulgaria, and Turkey in the 1914 war, and greatly respected each other’s abilities on the battlefield. But now, if Yugoslavia attacked Mussolini, it was well understood that Hitler would attack Yugoslavia, so Belgrade remained
Meanwhile, they waited. Early one morning, Spyro, the pharmacist-turned-wireless-operator, sat at a teacher’s desk and tapped out a message. He had been ordered to do this, to practice daily, and send one message every morning, to make sure the system worked. As Zannis watched, he sent and received, back and forth, while keeping a record on a scrap of paper. When he took off the headset, he smiled.
“What’s going on?” Zannis said.
“This guy up in Metsovon …” He handed Zannis the paper. “Here, take a look for yourself.”
TRIKKALA REPORTING 9 NOVEMBER.
WHY DO YOU SEND ME MESSAGES?
I AM ORDERED TO SEND ONCE A DAY.
DON’T YOU KNOW WE’RE BUSY UP HERE?
I HAVE TO FOLLOW ORDERS.
WHAT SORT OF MAN ARE YOU?
A SOLDIER.
THEN COME UP HERE AND FIGHT.
THAT WOULD BE FINE WITH ME.
LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU.
Every day it rained, and every day long lines of Italian prisoners moved through Trikkala, on their way to a POW camp somewhere south of the town. Zannis couldn’t help feeling sorry for them, cold and wet and miserable, eyes down as they trudged past the school. When the columns appeared, the reservists would bring out food or cigarettes, whatever they could spare, for the exhausted Greek soldiers guarding the prisoners.
Late one afternoon, Zannis walked along with one of the soldiers and gave him a chocolate bar he’d bought at the market. “How is it up there?” he said.
“We try not to freeze,” the soldier said. “It’s gotten to a point where fighting’s a relief.”
“A lot of fighting?”
“Depends. Sometimes we advance, and they retreat. Every now and then they decide to fight, but, as you can see, much of the time they just surrender. Throw away their rifles and call out,
“Beautiful Greece?”
The soldier shrugged and adjusted the rifle strap on his shoulder. “That’s what they say.”
“What do they mean? That Greece is beautiful and they like it and they never wanted to fight us?”
“Maybe so. But then, what the fuck are they doing down here?”
“Mussolini sent them.”
The soldier nodded and said, “Then fuck him too.” He marched on, tearing the paper off his chocolate bar and eating it slowly. When he was done he turned and waved to Zannis and called out, “Thank you!”
By the second week in November, Greek forces had crossed the Albanian border and taken the important town of Koritsa, several small villages, and the port of Santi Quaranta, which meant that Greece’s British ally could resupply the advance more efficiently. At the beginning of the war, they’d had to bring their ships into the port of Piraeus. Also, on Tuesday of that week, Zannis’s Yugoslav counterpart showed up. He was accompanied by a corporal who carried, along with his knapsack, a metal suitcase of the sort used to transport a wireless/telegraph. The two of them stood there, dripping on the tiles just inside the doorway of the school.
“Let’s go find a taverna,” Zannis said to the officer. “Your corporal can get himself settled in upstairs.”
Zannis led the way toward the main square, a waterproof groundcloth draped over his head and shoulders. The reservists had discovered that their overcoats, once soaked, never dried out, so they used what was available and walked around Trikkala looking like monks in green cowls.
“I’m called Pavlic,” the officer said. “Captain Pavlic. Reserve captain, anyhow.”
“Costa Zannis. Lieutenant Zannis, officially.”
They shook hands awkwardly as they walked. Zannis thought Pavlic was a few years older than he was, with a weatherbeaten face, sand-colored hair, and narrow eyes with deep crow’s-feet at the corners, as though he’d spent his life at sea, perpetually on watch.
“Your Greek is very good,” Zannis said.
“It should be. I grew up down here, in Volos; my mother was half Greek and my father worked for her family. I guess that’s why I got this job.” They walked for a time, then Pavlic said, “Sorry I’m so late, by the way. I was on a British freighter and we broke down-had to go into port for repairs.”
“You didn’t miss anything, not too much happens around here.”
“Still, I’m supposed to report in, every day. We have another officer in Janina, and there’s a big hat, a colonel, at your General Staff headquarters in Athens. It’s all a formality, of course, unless we mobilize. And, believe me, we won’t do any such thing.”
In the taverna, rough plank tables were crowded with local men and reservists, the air was dense with cigarette smoke and the smell of spilled retsina, and a fire of damp grapevine prunings crackled and sputtered on a clay hearth. It didn’t provide much heat but it was a very loud fire, and comforting in its way. The boy who served drinks saw them standing there, rushed over and said, “Find a place to sit,” but there was no table available so they
