Blood of Honour

Cle, passed a wooden crate of explosives to Tasker-Brown – but then, in his haste, let go too soon. Vaughan saw the box drop, his heart lurching as the flimsy crate split and packets of Nobel’s desensitized gelignite tumbled out onto the ground. Jesus, he thought.

‘You bloody fool!’ shouted Cumberlege.

And then Vaughan heard it.

A faint whirr that made him stop his work despite the burning urgency. He glanced at Cumberlege, then at Pendlebury; they had heard it too. Still finding it exciting? Vaughan thought. He grabbed the last box, handed it to Alopex and jumped onto the quayside.

‘Quick,’ said Pendlebury. ‘This way.’

Alopex yelled at the mule, sharply slapped its rump, and with a jerk the cart started moving. He cursed in Greek then said, ‘The mule will only go at mule pace. These beasts will not be hurried.’

The sound of aircraft was more distinct now. Vaughan searched the skies but he could not see them at first. There was more than one, though, that was for sure.

‘A curse on Teutonic timekeeping,’ muttered Pendlebury.

Along the quayside. It was some two hundred yards to the end of the harbour front and the narrow alley that led to the warren of back-streets. Vaughan knew Pendlebury intended to store the stash first in a cellar somewhere in the heart of the town before distributing it to various dumps in the mountains, away from the town.

The mule was moving painfully slowly, even though they were all pushing the cart to help. Come on, come on, thought Vaughan. He saw Pendlebury glance at him; even he looked scared now. The sound of aero engines grew louder, and this time, as Vaughan looked up into the deep blue sky, he saw six Stukas, approaching from the east. From flying in a loose vic formation, they now broke into line astern, seemed to overshoot the harbour, but then in turn peeled over and began their dives, the screaming sirens wailing as they hurtled downwards apparently aiming directly for them.

‘Keep going!’ shouted Pendlebury.

‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Vaughan. They were so nearly at the alley – thirty yards, that was all. Thirty yards! Damn it, couldn’t this mule go any faster? He looked up again as the first Stuka released its bomb, so close he could see it perfectly, its point leaning down slightly. He couldn’t help but duck but, to his surprise, the missile landed on the far side of the harbour wall, detonating with a mighty explosion of water rising high into the air. Twenty-five yards. The urge to cut and run was intense; self-preservation – it was a powerful instinct. The next bomb was also behind the harbour wall, but the third was inside, and so was the fourth. Vaughan clenched his teeth. Twenty yards, fifteen, ten. They were still in one piece despite the vast fountains of water and the terrible racket of sirens, engines and exploding bombs. Some gunners were firing their light ack-ack guns, and adding to the din, when the last of the six dive-bombers dropped its load.

The bomb exploded only fifty yards in front of them, crashing into a building by the harbour’s edge, dust and shards of stone and wood hurtling into the sky, but then, as the pilot pulled out of his dive, the rear-gunner opened fire, bullets raking through one of the caiques moored to the side and then spitting across the quay.

Vaughan cursed again but they were now at the entrance to the narrow alleyway. Alopex, a big man by Cretan standards, yanked the mule around the corner, while the men, grimacing with the exertion, pushed so hard that one of the cart’s wheels momentarily lost contact with the ground. As they hurried clear of the quayside, a second burst of machine-gun fire hammered into the ground, the bullets ricocheting noisily off the stone just a few feet behind them.

The narrow road and high walls of the buildings now protected them from all but a direct hit, but they did not dare pause yet, the cart jolting and rattling over the stone lane. The Stukas were climbing for a second attack, the light ack-ack from the harbour and to the west of the town thumping away. It gave the men a brief respite, however, as they wound their way through the narrow network of roads, and by the time the Stukas screamed down in their second round of dives, they were passing Pendlebury’s house and, opposite, the headquarters of 50 ME Commando.

Alopex finally halted the mule at the mouth of an even narrower alleyway. It was cool there, the back-street still in full shadow. He sent men to watch at either end of the street, but there was no one about. The Stukas were leaving and suddenly Heraklion was still and quiet once more, the intense racket of only a minute earlier gone as the aircraft vanished across the sea. Now the only sound was the cooing of pigeons from the roofs above. Vaughan wiped the sweat from his brow and the back of his neck, and breathed out heavily. Thank God.

‘We’ll unload here,’ said Pendlebury, grabbing one of the boxes. ‘Follow me.’

He led them down the alley, under a long, shallow archway, and then up some steps. Bougainvillaea plunged over a wall bringing a sudden splash of colour, and then, beyond its fronds, there was a doorway. Pendlebury put down his box, produced a large and ageing key, and opened the door onto a small courtyard. At one end a set of steps descended to a cellar. Vaughan smiled to himself. It was typical of Pendlebury to have found such a place. A grey cat prowled along the wall above them, eyeing them suspiciously.

‘He won’t tell,’ Pendlebury observed. ‘Come on, this way.’ He led them down the steps into a dark cellar, and switched on his electric torch. From the far side, further steps descended into a series of chambers deep under the town.

‘This should be safe enough for the time being,’ said Pendlebury. It was cold down there, the air musty. He swung his torch over the vaulted ceilings. ‘Byzantine.’ He grinned at Vaughan. ‘Some fourteen hundred years old. Our little secret, eh?’

*

The Stukas had left Heraklion, but they were not the only marauding Luftwaffe aircraft that morning. A little more than a hundred miles away to the north-west a Staffel of nine Junkers 88 twin- engine bombers were searching for British ships heading away from Greece. It had been just three weeks since the Germans had invaded the mainland and, as in Poland, Norway, the Low Countries and France, their enemies had soon been in full retreat. For many Greek soldiers there had been nowhere to run, but for the British, defeat had meant yet another evacuation, this time across the two hundred and more miles to Suda Bay in the north-west corner of Crete. The Luftwaffe had found rich pickings, repeatedly hammering the Royal Navy as it tried to get the mixed force of British, Australian and New Zealand troops away to safety.

‘Aussehen! Zwei britische Schiffe!’ said the Staffel Kapitan, Hans Bruhle, over the R/T, as ahead of him, just visible, he spotted two ships, their wakes vividly white against the deep, dark blue sea. Then he added, ‘Bereiten Sie anzugreifen.’ Prepare to attack.

The Junkers 88 had been designed with dive-bombing capabilities, and while unable to plummet down on its target with the kind of eighty-degree angle that the Stuka could perform, it could still dive both quickly and steeply. Bruhle now brought his Staffel down to around three thousand metres. The two ships were still some way to the south, but he could tell now, by the wake and the speed with which they were travelling, that they must be destroyers.

The sun, already rising high in the east, dazzled across Bruhle’s cockpit, glinting blindingly over the perspex. He spoke into his radio once more. They were going to head east on a bearing of ninety degrees, then loop around in a wide arc, so that the sun was behind them. Two Ketten – six machines – under Leutnant Keller would dive down and bomb the ships in quick succession, while he would lead the remaining Kette into a shallow dive without brakes, levelling off at two hundred metres and swooping in low for their attack. Timing was the key. It was imperative that his three low-level planes strike out of the sun just after the other six and at a time when the British destroyers were distracted. Dive-bombers were designed for accuracy, but as Bruhle was well aware, hitting a small and fast-moving target like a destroyer was no easy task. Low-level passes offered the best chance of success. At only a few hundred metres above the sea, however, the risks were considerable.

‘Keller,’ he said, ‘beginnen Sie Ihren Tauchgang, bis ich den Auftrag dazu erteilen.’ Wait until I give you the word to dive.

‘Jawohl, Herr Kapitan,’ Keller replied.

Bruhle’s mouth felt suddenly dry. He licked his lips and swallowed, then glanced at his navigator. As he pushed the control column forward, his heart was already quickening. It was always the same – nausea, but also