Blood of Honour

the Greeks. More paratroopers continued to stream down, but most, he realized, were dropping west and east of the town. Guns boomed, small arms chattered, and aircraft still roared overhead, but it was impossible to know what was going on. Clearly, the enemy were not far away – not more than fifty metres, he guessed. Ahead of him there were yet more olive groves and vineyards and a mass of trees and bushes, all bursting with leaf and flower. He took out his binoculars and peered through, then cursed as a bead of sweat smeared the glass. Wiping them, he put them back to his eyes. The walls of the town were just visible, rising over the vines and trees, he guessed around two kilometres away. Suddenly a bullet fizzed over his head, and then another, and Balthasar hastily ducked.

A whiff of smoke and cordite on the air. He looked at his watch – 1740 – and was pleased to see his hand was perfectly steady. How many had already been killed he had no idea, but it was time to get the survivors together, if possible establish a radio link to Major Schulz, gather as many supply canisters as possible, and then take the attack to the enemy. He was pleased they were up against Greek troops. They were tough fighters, but the conflict on the mainland had shown how poorly equipped they were. If the battalion could just gather themselves together, he reckoned their superior training and fighting skill would see them through.

Keeping the rise in the ground on his right, he moved through the vines and almost tripped over a prostrate paratrooper, groaning and clutching his stomach. A dark stain had seeped across the olive green of his step-in smock, while the boy’s face was already waxen and drained of colour. Balthasar bent down over him and carefully moved his hands away. Underneath was a gaping wound so large he could see the soldier’s guts.

‘You’ll be all right,’ Balthasar told him, pulling his P38 from the black leather holster looped through his belt. The boy would not live; better to end it quickly now. The lad looked at him with wide, frightened eyes.

‘Mother,’ he called. ‘Mother.’

‘All right, boy,’ said Balthasar, then put the pistol to the side of the boy’s head and fired. The head lolled lifelessly, and Balthasar took the lad’s MP38 and ammunition clips, and hurried on.

He emerged through the vines and, to his relief, saw a dozen of his men sheltering beneath the terrace of the vineyard on the track below. Among them was Obergefreiter Tellmann, the radio operator, who was squatting beside an already opened canister and pulling out an aluminium case containing the company’s field transceiver.

‘Does it still work?’ Balthasar asked, jumping down beside him.

Tellmann nodded.

‘That’s something,’ said Balthasar. ‘Try and get a link to the major right away,’ he demanded. He paused and listened. Planes were still dropping men and guns were pounding, but the small-arms fire was further away now. ‘The rest of you get up off your arses,’ he said, ‘and start looking for canisters and the others. Tell anyone you see to report back here. Go!’

While Tellmann was trying to make contact, he watched yet more paratroopers floating down from the sky, further towards the coast. More small arms chattered. Then he heard a shout nearby and a burst of machine-pistol fire. A burning Junkers plunged towards the open sea, thick smoke following in its wake. He wandered a short way down the track and spotted a Cretan man on a small cart, furiously urging on his mule. The crazy fool, Balthasar thought. Anyone moving around like that in the middle of a battle was asking for trouble. Unslinging his rifle, he drew it into his shoulder and aimed, then lightly squeezed the trigger. A loud crack, the butt pressed into his shoulder, and the man fell sideways from the cart. As Balthasar had hoped, the mule soon drew to a halt; they now had transport for their supplies. Another of his men emerged into the clearing, wide-eyed and breathless.

‘There are enemy just ahead, sir,’ he said. ‘Not Tommies – Greeks.’

‘I know. I’ve already met them. They’ve all got to be killed whoever they are,’ Balthasar replied, then said, ‘Go and fetch that mule and cart.’ He turned back to Tellmann, who nodded. I’m getting through.

Balthasar squatted beside him and impatiently waved at him to pass over the headset and transmitter. Bullets were schiffing through the vines on the small ridge above them.

‘Major Schulz,’ he snapped, into the black transmitter.

Static hissed and crackled in his ear, and then he heard the major’s muffled voice: ‘Get as many men as you can, and RV at Z45D21. Have you got that, Oberleutnant?’

Balthasar pressed the red button on the transmitter. ‘Yes, Herr Major.’

‘Be here by nineteen hundred hours. I think I’ve found a way through. We’ve got to go in tonight. Repeat tonight.’

‘Understood.’

He passed back the headphones, then took out his map. The grid reference pointed to a spot on the main coast road, west of the town. More of his men were now joining him. Two brought another of the canisters, and his second-in-command, Leutnant Eicher, emerged through the vines behind him.

‘Eicher, you made it,’ he said.

‘Only just. We’ve lost a lot of men.’

‘Then let’s not lose any more.’ Another canister had been recovered, which contained two MG34s. That would make life easier. He now had a band of just over twenty men; it was a fraction of his company, but he hoped they would pick up more as they headed towards the road. Calling the men around him, he divided them into two groups. They would move in two staggered lines, one covering the advance of the other in turn, with the machine-gun teams leading each column. Two men were also detailed to take the cart; they were to keep wide on the left flank.

‘Does anyone know what lies up ahead?’ he asked. ‘It looked like maize at the mouth of this valley as I was coming down.’

‘It is, sir,’ said a man. ‘But it’s much flatter down there.’

Damn it, thought Balthasar. ‘That can’t be helped. The maize will give us some cover, and so too will the other vegetation. We will move in a wide arc. Understood?’ The men nodded. ‘Right. Let’s get going.’ And then, at that moment, a Junkers, burning fiercely, streamed across the valley from the east, banked, spluttered, then whined in a final dive. The men stopped to watch this spectacle. Moments later, the aircraft landed with a crash of tearing, grinding metal. Then a pause – brief, strange, quiet – swiftly followed by an explosion. Balthasar noticed several of the men flinch, but he was not thinking of the men who might still have been on board: he was smiling to himself. He reckoned the Junkers must have landed not far from the road, and the breeze, albeit slight, was coming from the north. Thick smoke was already billowing up from the wreck – he could see and smell it. And smoke was the perfect cover. A smokescreen, in fact.

As soon as they had seen the first parachutes dropping, Tanner had suggested to Peploe that he position himself at the top of the rocky outcrop above their forward positions and do some sniping. In his haversack, wrapped in an old soft cotton cloth, was an Aldis scope, one his father had used in the last war, and which Tanner had carried with him ever since he had become a soldier himself. He had had some pads and scope fittings attached to his Lee Enfield rifle. He did not like to advertise the fact, because he had no desire to become a full-time army sniper, but on occasion it had proved a useful tool.

With Peploe’s consent, Tanner scrambled up onto the outcrop and set himself down, making the most of the rocks to find a position in which he could rest his elbows and get a steady aim. Hitting a moving target was no easy matter, but having grown up learning how to shoot game, and with plenty of subsequent practice and experience in the army, he was a fine shot, with a steady head, the ability to control his breathing and judge distance.

He could see now that most of the paratroopers were falling either around the airfield or to the south-west and west of the town. Away to his left, the Australians and Black Watch boys were having a field day. The firing was furious – planes were coming down in flames, and it seemed as though the invaders were being decimated before they had even touched the ground. It served them bloody well right: it was about time they got a pasting. To the west, the guns were now pounding the sky. Tanner rated their brigadier: he had noticed that there were many more guns around the town than had been firing during the daily enemy raids. Brigadier Chappel had evidently ordered them to keep their presence hidden. Now, however, they were all opening up and the German transports, flying low at not much more than five hundred feet, were suffering a pummelling. For the first time since he had set foot on Crete, Tanner began to think they might have a decent chance after all. Damn it, they had the chance to kill every single one of them if they held their nerve.

His scope was zeroed at four hundred yards, and he reckoned the closest to him were falling a little further