Blood of Honour

isolated farmstead before the town had spread. He had a couple of small barns, an enclosure with a pig and some goats, a few small fruit and olive groves. Balthasar and his men found it easily enough. Nearby, in a grove a short distance to the south, stood a heavy anti-aircraft gun, its breech destroyed, and around it trenches and shell casings where two days before British gunners had been manning it.

Balthasar had the property surrounded. Already dogs were barking, tied up in the yard, and as he and six of his men entered, they growled and strained on their ropes. A moment later, a man opened the front door, a long billhook in his hand.

‘Herr Mandoukis?’ Balthasar asked. His men had their MP40s and rifles pointing directly at him.

The man looked at them, then turned back inside and slammed the door. ‘After him,’ said Balthasar.

They caught him as he tried to run out of the back of the house, then brought him back inside, to the kitchen, still quite dark in the first light of dawn. It smelt of ash and bread and sweat. Mandoukis was, Balthasar guessed, in his late thirties, with thick black hair and a three-day growth of beard. His eyes kept darting to the bedroom, so Balthasar had it searched and, in the single large wardrobe, found his wife, a good-looking girl some years younger than her husband. She struggled, scratching at the men, spitting curses.

‘Search the place,’ he said. ‘The entire property – barns, cellar, everything.’ Outside the dogs continued to bark until with a yelp they were silenced by two pistol shots. Mandoukis clenched his teeth and snarled, so Balthasar punched him hard in the stomach. He doubled up and gasped, and his wife cried out in distress.

Clutching his stomach, the Cretan stood again, his face contorted with pain.

‘You were fighting against us at the Canea Gate,’ Balthasar said. ‘You were seen. Another person has verified this.’

Mandoukis denied it.

‘You were there,’ Balthasar repeated, as two of his men entered, clutching an old rifle, a shotgun and two bandoliers. He glanced at the small hoard and took hold of the rifle, dabbing a finger on the barrel, which he then held up. Then he sniffed the breech. ‘Recently used and cleaned.’ He drove the butt into Mandoukis’s stomach, and the Cretan collapsed onto the stone floor. Balthasar grabbed him by his hair and pulled him to his feet as his wife screamed.

‘I know you were fighting with Pendlebury,’ he said, ‘but who else? Who are the leaders of the guerrillas?’

Mandoukis mumbled.

‘He says he will never tell you anything,’ said the Greek officer. ‘You can kill him if you want, but he will never speak.’

Balthasar smiled to himself. An admission of guilt. He knew now that he would get what he wanted. ‘Oh, I think he will,’ he said, then nodded to the two men holding Mandoukis’s wife. They pushed her forward. The woman was trembling now, her lip quivering, shoulders hunched. She was wearing only her nightdress. Balthasar grabbed the collar and yanked so that it ripped, revealing her breasts.

‘Ohi!’ shouted Mandoukis, as his wife clutched herself. No! Balthasar grabbed the woman by the shoulder and pushed her roughly onto the table. She was crying, sobbing convulsively, as two men held her down by her arms so that she could no longer protect herself.

‘Names!’ said Balthasar. ‘I want the names.’

‘Ohi, ohi, ohi!’ cried Mandoukis, as Balthasar unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his smock.

‘Tell him,’ Balthasar said to the interpreter, ‘that if he does not talk, I will have his woman and then I will kill her.’ He began to unbutton the fly on his trousers and ran a hand over the woman’s body. She writhed and screamed but the men had her tightly gripped. ‘She will die,’ he said. ‘But he can save her.’ He was wondering how far he would have to go when Mandoukis gave an anguished yell and began to gabble, spurting out names as fast as his tongue would allow.

‘Slower,’ said Balthasar, his voice now calm, ‘speak more slowly.’

‘He says there were two kapitans fighting in Heraklion with Pendlebury. One is called Satanas, an old man who fought the Turks. He is the most powerful kapitan on the island. The second is called Alopex.’

Balthasar smiled. ‘And where are they now?’

The floodgates were open. ‘He says Satanas’s base is Krousonas, in the Ida Mountains. Alopex is probably also there, but his home village is Sarhos. It lies beneath Krousonas on the lower slopes of the mountains. It is not far from here, maybe twelve kilometres.’

‘What about numbers? And weapons?’

Mandoukis mumbled again, then clasped his head.

‘He does not know how many men,’ said the interpreter, ‘but they do not have many weapons, and even less ammunition.’

‘And this Alopex, and Satanas. These are noms de guerre. Their real names. I want their full names.’

‘Alopex is Kristannos, Giorgis Kristannos. His family run a large olive-pressing business in Sarhos. Satanas is called Antonis Grigorakis.’

Balthasar smiled to himself, then grabbed Mandoukis, gripping his throat. ‘And ask him,’ he hissed, ‘who cut off the heads of my men.’

As the interpreter spoke, Balthasar could feel Mandoukis break completely, his legs giving way as his whole body trembled with a mixture of fear, guilt and self-loathing.

‘Alopex,’ mumbled the man.

17

Around 7 a.m., Friday, 30 May. They had been walking for nine hours with barely a pause. No one had talked much; occasionally, Tanner had heard a faint murmur of a low conversation, but otherwise the men seemed content with their thoughts. He was happy to listen to the tramp of boots, the clop of the mule’s hoofs and the squeak of the cart’s wheels over the rough dirt tracks. Its strange rhythm was quite soothing, somehow. Then, as dawn had crept over them once more, the night sounds of the cicadas had been replaced by a different chorus as birds opened their lungs to mark another day. He had loved May as a boy – it had been his favourite month. The trees and hedgerows had been in full bloom, the mornings alive with birdsong, and the summer spread out before him, with cricket, the harvest and long light days.

They had crossed both main roads without seeing a soul, and now, a little over an hour later, had climbed down from a vinecovered ridge into a narrow valley and were walking up a track beside a stream, past clumps of bamboo and cactus on one side and chestnut and plane trees on the other. Already, dappled shadow played patterns along the track as the morning sun shone through the leaves. The air was cool and fresh, but with a faint whiff of chickens and sheep dung. Up ahead was a village where, the Cretans had told them, they would stop for some breakfast; it was the home of one of them.

‘And it is also the home village of Alopex,’ Vaughan told Tanner. ‘He is kapitan here, the patriarch.’

Tanner said nothing. At the back of a house, chickens were scratching at the ground and from within he heard a child crying.

‘It’s a pretty place,’ said Peploe. He looked up at the mountains rising away behind the houses, and Tanner followed his gaze. They towered imperiously, a hazy blue in the morning light. The Germans, he reckoned, would be hard-pushed to track down any guerrillas up there.

They turned a corner where cypress trees looked down on them and Tanner saw they had reached a meeting point of several tracks. Across the way was a kafenio, its doors already open. An elderly woman emerged, her arms open wide. Smiling, she hurried to one of the Cretans and embraced him. Several children suddenly appeared, shyly peering round doorways at the strange sight of so many British soldiers, then, confidence rising, stepping out into the road, pointing and sniggering. The place erupted into a hive of activity. Old men appeared, clasping the andartes, and then the soldiers were being ushered into the