Blood of Honour

airfield they could see a pall of grey, dusty smoke.

‘Is that it for one day, do you think?’ asked Peploe.

Tanner shrugged. ‘They’ve got to come some time soon. I’m sure of it.’

Peploe was quiet for a moment, then shook his head sadly. ‘Ah – so close yet so far.’

‘Sir?’

‘The ruins. Another hundred yards and I’d have made it. And one of life’s ironies that it should be Captain Pendlebury of all people stopping me getting there. Oh, well.’

‘Perhaps if we kick out Jerry, sir, there’ll be the opportunity after that. Did you tell him you knew of him?’

‘Yes – and that I have his book on Amarna too.’

‘Amarna?’

‘It’s in Egypt. He was excavating there half the year and here the rest of the time. I rather regretted it, actually. Made me feel a bit foolish.’

Tanner smiled. ‘And what did he say?’

‘Much the same as you. Said he’d take me round after we’d beaten the Germans.’

As they neared B Company’s lines, the truck was waved down.

‘Good luck, gentlemen,’ said Pendlebury, as Tanner and Peploe jumped out.

‘And you,’ Peploe replied. He clapped his hand on the top of the hood, and the pick-up sped off, a cloud of dust following in its wake.

‘Jack,’ said Peploe, as they hurried towards Company Headquarters, ‘I know this probably isn’t the time, but it’s going to be all right with Lieutenant Liddell, isn’t it?’

‘As long as he keeps his mouth shut.’

‘I think he will. I talked to him about it yesterday and told him I didn’t want him to tell anyone what he told us. That you are CSM Tanner and that was all there was to it.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘But, Jack, you weren’t under age when you joined up, were you?’

Tanner said nothing.

‘So why did you change your name?’

At this Tanner stopped, sighed, then said, ‘Sir, I really don’t want to talk about it, but at the time I had very good reasons to do so. Can we leave it at that?’

‘All right, Jack. But just assure me of one thing. It’s not something I should know, is it? Nothing that will affect the company or the battalion?’

Tanner breathed in deeply again. ‘No – no, sir, it isn’t.’

And just then he heard a faint rumble, which made them both stop dead in their tracks. A moment later, the noise had grown and now both men were running up through the grove to the small rocky ridge above their positions. Away to the west, turning in over the coast, they saw aircraft, lots of aircraft.

‘Here they come,’ said Peploe. ‘So it’s happening, after all. My God, but they’re low.’

And as the guns on the ground began to boom, so the first parachutes began to unfurl, their white canopies drifting down slowly through the warm early-evening sky.

5

It was not until half past three that the 3rd Battalion finally began boarding their transports at Eleusis, and not until some twenty minutes later that the Tante Jus, as the Junkers 52s were known, began to bump and rumble down the runway and finally get airborne. From being in a dense cloud of swirling dust one minute, they were suddenly emerging back into a world of clear blue, leaving the mainland of Greece behind and heading out across the sea.

Eighty minutes later, they were approaching Crete.

‘Stand by!’ called one of the crew. Turbulence buffeted the plane so that the men sitting on either side of the dark, corrugated fuselage knocked into one another and put out feet to steady themselves. Balthasar felt his heart beat a little faster. Clear intelligence about what would be waiting for them had not been forthcoming, but then, just as they were about to land, news had arrived that there were more than forty thousand enemy troops on the island, almost four times as many as had been thought. No one had expected the Tommies to roll over immediately, but their task was clearly going to be tougher than they had originally imagined. Men were going to die. He glanced along the men sitting opposite him, each alone with his thoughts. Some chewed at their lips, others sat with their eyes closed. Unteroffizier Schramm, sitting opposite, stared directly ahead, his jaw clenched.

The Junkers lurched again, this time the engine whining as they dropped some height.

‘Get ready!’ came the shout from the pilot, and Balthasar got to his feet, the others following, and hooked up his static line. It was difficult to move with so much kit: parachute at the back, rifle and MP40, and all the various bits of webbing. He turned to check that the man next to him had hooked up correctly and then the crewman was heaving off the door and the rush of wind blasted through the fuselage so that his smock and trousers clung to his body and the skin on his cheeks fluttered. Balthasar had insisted on being first to jump and now stood by the door and caught his first glimpse of Crete, blue-grey mountains rising above them as the Junkers shook and rumbled its way along the coast.

Heraklion was just up ahead, and bullets began to ping against the fuselage. Suddenly a line of them tore through the metal, leaving bright holes of daylight. One man slumped to the floor. Dead? Balthasar wondered. Flak now, and the plane rocked as a burst exploded disturbingly close.

The despatcher by the door received a signal from the pilot, then beckoned to Balthasar to jump. A deep breath, and he was out. One, two, three, and then a jolt as his parachute blossomed, the harness clamping around his chest and knocking the breath from his lungs so that he gasped. He glanced around, spotting the airfield and the town, with its immense walls and the scattering of houses beyond, stretching out into the surrounding countryside. How high was he? More than 150 metres – too high. Too much time in which to get hit.

Bullets and tracer arced up towards him, and just as he was trying to get his bearings, there was a loud explosion above and he looked up to see flames engulfing the Junkers. How many were out? Seven? And the rest? More tumbled from the plane, two already on fire. He watched a man – one of his men – plunging past, legs waving, arms and parachute ablaze. Another nearby jerked as he was hit, then hung limply from his harness. This is slaughter, he thought, then felt something smack into his rifle butt – a bullet? More transports whirred over, the roar like a swarm of hornets. Not far now, the ground approaching, a mass of olive groves and vineyards. He could see he might land in some trees, so swung his legs. Good, he thought, as he seemed to accelerate down onto an old track at the edge of a vineyard.

With the parachute harness strapped to his back, he landed awkwardly, broke into a roll and winded himself. For a moment he lay still, trying to breathe calmly, but then, with his gravity knife, he cut free his parachute and unclipped his harness. Suddenly he heard movement a short way ahead among the vines. For a split second he froze, then crouched and deftly rolled onto his front, his face just centimetres from the dry, dusty soil, and peered ahead. No more than fifteen metres away he saw several enemy – their legs at any rate. Not Tommies, but Greeks, with puttees wrapped up to their knees. Carefully, he pulled back the cocking handle and took a stick grenade from his belt. Voices, excited, then another ordering them to be quiet.

Too late, thought Balthasar as he gave them a brief three-second burst. Men screamed and he saw two fall to the ground. Others fired their rifles wildly, but Balthasar was already unscrewing the metal cap on his grenade. One, two, he counted, then hurled it towards the enemy. He had already got to his feet and begun scampering away when the grenade exploded, the blast accompanied by more screams. Sliding below a lip in the ground, more bullets followed him, but they were comfortably above his head. As he hurried through the vines, the shots and voices lessened until he emerged again, further along the track but out of sight of the enemy, now some hundred metres away.

Half crouching, he approached the same lip in the land, but further back, away from where he had spotted