Blood of Honour

themselves into the side of the road, they heard Mandoukis call in response. More German voices and then one man was moving towards the Cretan. Tanner could just make out that Mandoukis had his arms in the air.

‘We’ve got to kill him,’ whispered Tanner, bringing his rifle to his shoulder.

‘No,’ said Alopex, pushing the barrel away. ‘Let me.’

‘Be quick then,’ said Tanner. It was hard to see them. Dark shapes – that was all. He glanced at Alopex. Don’t miss, he thought. Up ahead the figures seemed to be moving, but then Alopex fired, the single shot cracking out sharply, the report echoing around the narrow valley. Had he hit the man? Tanner couldn’t be sure, but voices were shouting in alarm and then he heard Mandoukis jabbering. Professing his innocence, thought Tanner, bringing his rifle to his shoulder. He fired, wildly, blindly, but already a machine-gun had opened up, a rapid brurp that sent lethal darts of tracer pulsing towards them.

Alopex hissed an order to his men but not before one cried out and collapsed on the road. Tanner felt bullets hissing past him, smacking into the dirt road, as he scrambled up the bank and among the olives above them. He glanced around and saw the heavy shape of Alopex dive into the cover of the tree-lined hillside.

‘Keep moving!’ whispered Tanner, as a flare whooshed into the sky above them. It burst and crackled, bright magnesium lighting the ground around them.

‘The sons of whores!’ hissed Alopex, a few yards away, as they pushed through the dense olives. More machine-gun fire rang out, bullets thudding into the tree trunks. Tanner’s chest was tightening as he fought his way through, ducking under branches, gasping for air, legs throbbing as he climbed up the slopes through the thick grass. Another flare burst above them but, glancing back, he saw they were now out of any direct line of fire. Away to his left he glimpsed Alopex and one of his andartes.

‘Are you all right?’ he called.

‘Yes,’ came the reply, but then he heard the faint thwack of a mortar followed by its hollow whine and flung himself to the ground. A second later the shell exploded thirty yards ahead. He was on his feet again now, climbing to his right, away from where the mortar had landed. The hollow whine rang out again and he flung himself face down once more, his hands over his bare head. This time the explosion was closer, so that earth and grit showered down on him. As the rain of debris stopped, he glanced around. The light of the flare was dimming but he saw that Alopex and his andarte were still with him. He got to his feet and, a short distance above, spotted a small rocky outcrop. He pointed to it, saw Alopex nod, then scrambled towards it as yet another mortar whistled down, crashing into a tree, which split, sending not only soil into the sky but also woodchips. Diving behind the safety of the rock, Tanner clutched his head. Moments later, Alopex and his andarte were beside him.

‘You were correct,’ said Alopex, as he gasped for breath. ‘They were ready for us.’

‘Are you all right?’ asked Tanner, as another mortar whined into the sky.

‘A piece of wood in my arse, that’s all. But I had to leave Andreas.’

The mortar exploded twenty yards below them, but although they pressed themselves against the rock, they were safe from any flying shrapnel. As the clatter died down, Tanner listened. He could no longer hear any voices. The second flare had faded, so they were in darkness once more, their eyes struggling to adjust.

‘Wait a moment longer,’ whispered Tanner. He was expecting to hear another whoosh of a flare, but there was nothing. ‘Let’s move,’ he said, after several minutes had passed. Carefully, quietly, they began climbing through the grove once more, their legs swishing through the long grass. Cicadas chirruped around them and Tanner paused to wipe the sweat from his eyes, his breathing still heavy. A short while later they reached the higher road that joined the mountain villages, and turned towards Krousonas, the village glowing dimly as it nestled in the cradle of the mountains.

Tanner paused to drink from his water bottle, then cupped his hand and splashed his face, his heart still hammering. Damn it, but that had been close.

‘How could he have betrayed us?’ snarled Alopex. ‘How could he?’

‘They still have his wife,’ muttered Tanner. Not for the first time, he regretted their failure to find her the previous night. He wanted to lash out at Alopex, to yell at him for being so stupid. Damn it! Tanner knew he should never have allowed Alopex to take that shot – he should have killed the man himself while he had had the chance. No – they should never have allowed Mandoukis to reach the Germans in the first place. What had they been thinking? He should have been made to prove his innocence, not allowed to betray his guilt, and locked up out of harm’s way. We’ve been idiots, thought Tanner. And Mandoukis was still a dead man. Even if they did not shoot him there and then – even if he survived a long incarceration – his people would not forgive him for what he had done. Tanner doubted Mandoukis would be saving his wife either. The damn bloody fool. Damn it, shooting Mandoukis would almost have been a mercy killing. But instead of lying dead on the road, Mandoukis was now spilling all he knew to the enemy.

Tanner sighed wearily and slung his rifle across his shoulder. How much Mandoukis could reveal, only time would tell.

21

Oberleutnant Balthasar had woken at the sound of the shooting, swiftly got out of his camp bed and dressed, praying this had been the attack by Alopex and his men that he had hoped for. He was therefore not best pleased to learn that only one Cretan bandit had been killed and that whoever had opened fire appeared to have melted back into the night. On the other hand, at least his men had not shot Mandoukis. That was something.

The Cretan was brought before him in the company command-post tent. In the yellow half-light provided by a lone paraffin lamp, Balthasar was struck by how much the man had changed in just a few days: the growth around his face had become a rough beard, his hair and face were filthy, his cheeks gaunt and his eyes wide with fear but showing extreme fatigue. He smelt too – of piss and grime. Really, Balthasar thought, it was hard not to think of these people as inferior beings – they were little more than filthy, vicious, uncivilized animals. Balthasar could hardly bear to look at him.

The Cretan began to speak wildly. Balthasar raised his hands to silence him, turned to his interpreter and said, ‘Tell this man to be quiet. What is he saying?’

‘He wants to know that his wife is still alive, or he will not tell you anything.’

‘I hardly think he’s in any position to bargain,’ said Balthasar, then turned back to Mandoukis. ‘Let me get this straight. You joined your bandit friends and discovered they were planning an attack to free the women and child we imprisoned, so you thought you would wait and see what happened before coming back to me? It did not occur to you that, had you warned me, I might have set your wife free?’

‘He says he knew nothing about the plan. He was not with all the guerrillas at that time.’

‘Hmm. I find that hard to believe. What can he tell me now?’

‘He wants to know that his wife is safe.’

‘Yes. He will have to take my word for it, though, just as he expects me to take his.’

Relief appeared to sweep over the Cretan. As it happened, his wife was still alive, although she would soon be leaving Crete. There was no point in keeping prisoners on the island. Not only were they an unnecessary strain on resources, they were of use in labour camps in the Reich.

‘He says the attacks on Heraklion were not carried out by Cretans but by six British soldiers still on the island.’

Balthasar was certainly interested in this. It explained how they had managed to get into the town undetected. Wearing the uniforms of my men, he thought. ‘Tell him to describe them,’ he said.

‘Five of them were from a unit called Yorks Rangers. There are sixteen of them – they had sailed from Heraklion but their ship was sunk and they managed to get back to land and make their way up to the mountains.’

‘What did they look like?’

Mandoukis described them, gesticulating to emphasize size and features.