Blood of Honour

kafenio and urged to sit down.

The older women, Tanner noticed, were all dressed in black, with black scarves around their heads, but several younger girls had joined them and were dressed differently, in skirts and blouses, their hair loose. Some of the men had nudged each other, but Tanner found himself unable to take his eyes off the young woman now helping to feed them. She had a lean face with wide, deep brown eyes and shoulder-length hair. Certainly pretty, Tanner thought, but something more attracted him: an air of innocence, of vulnerability.

‘She’s lovely, isn’t she?’ said Sykes, sitting next to him at a table near the door.

‘Very fine,’ agreed Tanner. Then she came over to them and, standing beside Tanner, leaned over to put down a bowl of bread and a large pot of honey, her arm brushing Tanner’s shoulder. She smiled at him. ‘Eat,’ she said, ‘you eat.’

‘Efharisto,’ said Tanner, and she smiled again.

As Tanner tore off a hunk of bread he saw her talking with one of the other girls and looking towards him. Catching her eye, he smiled, then winked and, to his delight, saw her laugh. Soon after, she brought over some coffee.

‘You like the honey?’ she asked him.

‘Very much,’ he told her.

‘My own bees.’

Soon after, when he had finished eating and had drunk his coffee, Tanner caught her eye again, then got up and stepped outside into the street. He paused, lit a cigarette, then walked away from the kafenio and down towards the small, domed church. Glancing back, he saw the girl turn into the road, heading in his direction, so he moved into a narrow lane, off which some steps led up to the door of a house. Sitting down he waited for her to pass, conscious that his heart had begun to thump.

She reached him and stopped, just as he had hoped she would. ‘Hello,’ she said.

‘I hoped you might follow.’

She laughed, then looked away briefly.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Alexis,’ she said.

He told her his, then said, ‘This is a beautiful place.’

‘Yes, I think so.’

He stood up, aware of her eyes on his. An overwhelming desire to kiss her swept over him. She was standing so close to him that he could see her collarbone protruding gently beneath the soft brown skin, and the swell of her breasts beneath her shirt. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and looked at him, her eyes scanning his face. It was the war, he knew, that had made him so bold. He’d not even known her thirty minutes yet now he felt quite bewitched, overcome by a need to act on his impulses before it was too late.

‘Tanner!’ he heard Peploe call, from back down the road. ‘Tanner!’

She held out a hand and took his. Her fingers felt so light, so small in his own. ‘Be careful,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘And you.’ He smiled. ‘I must get back. Alexis, I hope we meet again.’

She let his hand drop. A fleeting smile and then he hurried away from her without a backward glance.

‘Where d’you get to?’ Peploe asked him cheerily, as he rejoined the others.

Tanner noticed one of the Cretan andartes glare at him. ‘I just went to have a little look around the place.’

Vaughan came over. ‘It looked like you made a big impression on Alexis,’ he said, grinning.

Tanner shifted his feet and hastily took out a cigarette.

‘Looks like the feeling was mutual,’ laughed Peploe.

‘She’s a beautiful girl, sir,’ said Tanner.

‘And she also happens to be Alopex’s sister,’ said Vaughan. ‘You might want to keep your admiration to yourself from now on, Tanner. You’ll upset the andartes if you flirt with their women, especially the sister of their kapitan.’

Tanner’s heart sank. ‘Bloody Cretans,’ he muttered. ‘Can hardly breathe without offending their sodding pride and honour. It’s getting on my nerves.’

‘A bit rich coming from you, Jack,’ said Peploe.

Tanner glared at him, and slung his rifle and Schmeisser back over his shoulder. ‘Are we getting going then, sir?’

They climbed on up to Krousonas, Satanas’s village, and much larger than Sarhos. It was higher up, nestling in the flanks of the mountains, the houses built around a snaking main road. Neither of the kapitans was there, but there were several andartes to meet the cart. They were surprised to see the Rangers as well, but led them on, out of the village and up a winding track that climbed higher into the mountains. As they cleared a crest, they paused. The sun was beating down on them, and the climb was hot work. Tanner stood by Sykes, drinking from his water bottle, looking back to where they had come from. Below were the low, rounded ridges and valleys they had crossed but beyond was a higher saddle, a long, low, narrow mountain that Tanner realized they must have skirted in the night. The ridge stood proud, its burnished rock faces standing sentinel over the patchwork of groves and vineyards that covered the feminine curves of the rolling valleys and hills in between.

‘It’s a flippin’ beautiful place, isn’t it?’ sighed Sykes.

‘And easy to hide in from the Germans. Christ, just look at all that cover.’ He turned his head to the peaks rising behind them. ‘And look at these.’ Beyond, in the distance, lay the deep-blue sea and there, on the coast, twinkling white in the midday sun, Heraklion, only eight miles or so as the crow flew but from their current height seeming much further.

They went over to the cart, where Liddell was still lying. His shoulder was heavily bandaged but the bloodstain had not grown larger, Tanner noticed. Sweat beaded his brow and upper lip; he needed shade. As Tanner and Sykes leaned over him, his eyes flickered open. ‘Where am I?’ he mumbled.

‘Halfway up a bleedin’ mountain, sir,’ said Sykes.

‘A mountain?’ Liddell looked confused.

‘You take it easy, sir,’ said Sykes. ‘Get some kip now and you’ll soon be better.’

Liddell closed his eyes again.

‘He’s a bit feverish, isn’t he?’ said Sykes.

‘Bound to be,’ said Tanner. ‘But you couldn’t hope for a cleaner wound. All that saltwater. He’ll be all right.’

They continued, following a narrow track that led up through a ravine. The stream there was little more than a trickle, as scree-covered rock rose either side of it. The mule struggled as the ground became ever rockier. The lush slopes of the lower reaches had gone, replaced by hardy bushes and thickets. Goats bleated, their bells jangling eerily across the gorge.

‘Bloody hell, sir,’ said Hepworth, as he stumbled over some loose stones. ‘How much further?’

‘Stop mithering, Hep,’ said Tanner. He was wondering the same himself, though, so he asked Vaughan.

‘Just over that crest up ahead,’ said Vaughan, ‘there are caves and shepherds’ huts. We’re nearly there.’

Just then the mule stumbled too, and the Cretans rushed to the back of the cart. Tanner followed their lead. ‘Come on, you lot,’ he said to the others. ‘Lend a hand.’

They got the cart moving again, but stayed with it, helping to push it as its wooden wheels stuck on the rocks.

At last, they crested the mouth of the gorge, and there, up ahead, were men – men clutching rifles and raising them in salute at the sight of the latest cache to make it to the safety of their mountain hide-out. Tanner paused, wiping his arm across his damp brow. Below, at the foot of the gorge, as they had stood on the crest, half the island and more had been spread before them. Now that view had narrowed, blocked by huge peaks either side, so that all that could be seen was a tight V. No one could see them up here, Tanner realized. No German at any rate.

They had reached a kind of basin near the top of the mountains. The air was absolutely still, the only noise the jangling of goats and sheep and the cries of the Cretan guerrillas. They were led around a small spur and there, behind it, cutting into the mountain at the edge of the basin, was the cave, hidden entirely from the lowlands below and even from an aircraft above.