Blood of Honour

BLOOD OF

HONOUR

JAMES HOLLAND

For Richard Braybrooke

Also by James Holland

Non-fiction

FORTRESS MALTA

TOGETHER WE STAND

HEROES

ITALY’S SORROW

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

Fiction

THE BURNING BLUE

A PAIR OF SILVER WINGS

THE ODIN MISSION

DARKEST HOUR

1

A little before 8.25 a.m. on the morning of Monday, 28 April, 1941. A wooden fishing-boat, some eighty feet long, a painted eye on either side of its prow, was approaching the mouth of the outer harbour at Heraklion. At first glance, it was much like any other caique that had sailed the Aegean for centuries: gaff-rigged with a main and mizzen mast, light rigging either side, a prominent bowsprit, and half a dozen men manning its deck. A closer glance, however, revealed some anomalies. On its foredeck stood a single two-pounder gun, while towards the stern were a brace of mounted Oerlikon 20mm cannon. And that was not all, for fluttering from the top of the mizzen mast was a small White Ensign. His Majesty’s Ship Dolphin was an unusual naval vessel, yet in this war there was room for all shapes and sizes in the Royal Navy – after all, needs must. A flotilla of fast motor gunboats would have been better, a godsend in fact, but Britain’s war effort was already badly stretched and here in the eastern Mediterranean they had to make do with whatever was available. If that meant a wooden fishing boat, then so be it.

And the caique did have certain advantages. It was certainly a less conspicuous naval vessel, even when armed. At the faintest sound of aircraft, the ensign could be lowered in a trice, the guns covered with tarpaulins and it would look just like any other fishing-boat, plying its trade on the wine-dark sea. Similarly, if Dolphin was threatened, the canvas could be whipped off and they would at least have some form of defence. A versatile little boat, her skipper liked to say.

At her prow, an army officer sat, gazing towards the harbour, his arms held loosely around his knees. He was still young – in his late twenties – and wearing battledress, although his head was bare save for his mop of dark, almost black hair. A captain in 50 Middle East Commando, Alex Vaughan had been based on Crete since December – the unit had been sent to help shore up the island’s defences. Somewhere along the line, his role had developed so that he was spending less time overseeing the preparation of gun emplacements around the island’s airfields and ports and more helping the British vice consul, Captain John Pendlebury – so much so, in fact, that when 50 ME Commando had been posted back to Egypt, Vaughan had stayed.

A renowned archaeologist and former curator at Knossos, Pendlebury, Vaughan had discovered, had for some time been almost single-handedly preparing the islanders to resist any German and Italian invasion, should it come – an event that seemed ever more likely now that the Germans were swarming through mainland Greece. Pendlebury was an unlikely warrior, but there could be no denying either his passion or his energy. Vaughan had been impressed by the man’s vision and deep knowledge of the place. More than that, he alone seemed to understand the potential for resistance of both the island and its people.