When they went to rescue Andreou, they were betrayed. The sentry was there all right—an expendable Pole —and Stavros reached him and killed him, clinically, neatly, but then the world went mad and panzer grenadiers seemed to grow out of the ground, coming in for the kill. One had grabbed him, twisted his knife wrist, rammed his arm behind his back, and Stavros, in his nightmares, remembered to perfection how he had straddled the Pole when it had happened, how the nightingales stopped singing as a cloud covered the new moon, how Craig had appeared behind the panzer grenadier, pulled back his steel helmet, gripped its rim in his hands, spun it like a steering wheel and broken his neck, then let him drop, still twitching, and gone to help the little dark man kill Germans. They had done it like terriers killing rats, then blasted their way into the prison as alarm bells gonged and a rocket climbed, burst, in the rich dark bloom of the sky. They had found Andreou too, and carried him out—his left leg was broken —while Serafin and the others kept up the fight, and lorry loads of grenadiers came into action.
Stravos adored Andreou. The schoolteacher had taught him so much, encouraged him to believe that for him to be a doctor was not only possible, but essential, until Stavros, too, believed it, and learned all that the schoolteacher could teach him. Without Andreou he was nothing. And that night he watched the man he adored carried out by strangers. They carried him carefully, but without feeling, Stavros remembered, as if he were an object whose value might diminish at any minute. The German reinforcements arrived, and Stavros's father and the rest of the Andraki men were pushed inevitably back. Stavros stood where he was, and stared at Andreou, and the noise of battle grew louder. Stavros didn't hear it. All he heard was Andreou saying, 'Can you get me out?'
Craig spoke to the little dark man, and he moved, wary as a fox, to the sound of gunfire, then signaled back to Craig. Craig looked at Andreou then, and shook his head. Andreou sighed. Stavros would never again in his life hear anything so heartbreaking as that sigh. 'You had better kill me then,' he said.
Craig had looked back to Rutter, and the little man had signaled again, more urgently.
'Christ, you're a man,' said Craig, and while Stavros
screamed aloud, he shot Andreou between the eyes. He had gone over to Stavros then, and pushed him out on the way back to his father, stopping from time to time to help the little man kill more Germans. Stavros never knew whether he hated Craig, or adored him. . . .
Craig looked up at the small, sleek man. He was in a low, cool room and there were dull pains in his stomach and head. The man in the room beside him became first a doctor, then Stavros. Suddenly Craig remembered; he had sent for Stavros. He remembered why.
'How's Serafin?' he asked.
'He'll live,' Stavros said. 'He won't be much use again—but he'll five.' 'That bad?'
'Broken arm, broken ribs, pneumonia, multiple bruises,' Stavros said. 'Ten years ago he'd simply have got over it. Now he's too old.'
'I shouldn't have left him,' said Craig.
Stavros took his pulse, listened to his heartbeat. 'Not today,' he said. 'Tomorrow you can tell me.'
When Craig told him he listened, unflinching, heard it out to the end. And then:
'You did far more than I have a right to ask,' he said. 'Without you my father would be dead. No!'—when Craig tried to interrupt: 'He was an obstinate old man. Without you he would still have gone and he would be dead. As it is, he's an imbecile, but that's not your fault, Craig. You did evenihing I—or he—could expect.'
He went out then to speak to Maria, and the old woman came in, lay across Craig's bed, and wept on his chest.
'Sh, mother,' said Craig, 'I don't deserve it.'
'He would have died,' Maria sobbed. 'You brought
Ar.f Sti '.Tcs wiped his hands on a very white handkerchief, ar.d v:ved that Craig must be made well again, superblv welL no matter how long he was kept away from Athens. He new knew whether he adored Craig or hated him.
When Craig began to heal Stavros superintended his convalescence, waited for the day when he could see Serafin, and took him in, showed him an old, old man who looked like Serafin, but whose muscles were soft and slack, whose eyes were stupid and faded, who spent all day playing Xeri, a simple and undemanding game of cards, or else whittled at a piece of wood jammed into a chair, slowly, painfully, conscientiously cutting it to pieces with a small and very beautiful knife. Craig had a knife too, as elegant as Serafin's. He had taken it from the German, Bauer. He looked at the old man, and spoke to him softly and gently. Serafin began at once to ask for things; a few drachmas, a handkerchief, an orange, sweets, demanding like a child the tangible evidences of love. Craig gave him money and peeled an orange for him, then watched as the old man ate it, messily, noisily, babbling his thanks, the old voice cackling its pleasure even as he cringed. Craig went outside and Stavros followed him. 'Who did it?' Craig asked.
'The big man,' said Stavros. 'He must be enormous.' 'He is,' said Craig.
'It took no more than a few seconds,' Stavros said, 'to turn him from what he was to—that.' He nodded at Serafin's room.
'Why?' Craig asked. 'Why did he do it?'
'Your accent is not like my father's, nor your coloring,' Stavros said. 'He did not believe that you were his son. He questioned my father about it. My father insisted that you were—even while the big man did that to him.'
'But why? Why didn't he tell the truth?'
Stavros paused, and looked at him.
'At first I think it was because you had said so. You wanted to be taken for his son, so he said you were. He told them you had worked in Cyprus for a while, picked up a different accent. That was at first, before the big man lost his temper.'
'And afterward?'
'He believes it,' said Stavros. 'From now until he dies you are his son. He has owed you a debt for twenty years—he has owed you for my life. Would you say he has repaid you now?'
'All right,' said Craig. 'All right. I'll see that big man again.'
'And what will you do? Kill him?'
'Maybe,' said Craig.
'You have killed for our family before,' said Stavros. 'I hope we were sufficiently grateful.'
'Your father was,' said Craig, and Stavros flushed.
'What can I do then?' Stavros asked. 'Teach you to kill more efficiently?'
'It's possible,' said Craig. 'You could show me how to use a knife.'
'For what?' Stavros asked. 'You kill well enough
now.'
'A German did this to me,' Craig said, and touched his wound. 'I don't want it to happen again.'
Stavros said: 'I haven't used the knife in years.'
'You were the best I've ever seen,' said Craig.
'Very well, then,' Stavros said. 'I'll teach you.'
Craig looked into his eyes, sensed the raging anger behind them that Stavros struggled to conceal for his father's sake. Stavros was ready to hate him, but that hatred might be put to use. Stavros had a skill that might be useful if he was to go back and seek the big Englishman. They practiced together every day, longer and longer sessions as Craig's strength returned, and in the end, he was satisfied. He became an artist, with a quick and deadly grace, a duelist's speed and judgment, and even Stavros found it hard to hold him. He could hold a knife like a sword, cut and thrust with appalling speed, and as he fought his left hand worked for him too, a hard edge of bone that could strike like a hammer, bruise flesh, snap bone, kill, if his aim were accurate, as quickly as the knife.
One day they fought in the open, out by the beach, using the little wooden knives Stavros had made for their practice, watched by a crowd of Andraki men, alive to each smoothly timed movement of foot and ami. At last Stavros leaped, Craig swerved too late, and he felt the wooden knife at his heart, but even then his body had twisted with the swerve, his own knife plunged beneath Stavros's ribs. The doctor laughed.
'You can't help it, can you?' he asked. 'Even when you're dying, you go on killing.'
There was no joy in his laughter.
'I can't teach you any more,' Stavros said. 'You're as good as I am. If you want to be better, you must go on by yourself.'
