‘So, you are beginning to kill each other now. You did kill him, I suppose?’
I took on the White Man’s Burden. I nodded.
‘I’m afraid we did. It was an accident. He didn’t identify himself.’
The priest studied the earthen floor of the chapel. He was barefoot, and his feet were the same colour. He looked up.
‘He was actually a good man. He came here to help another – did you know that?’
‘Yes, we did. We followed to help him.’
‘But killed him instead. That was very unfortunate.’
‘I told you . . . it was an accident.’
‘Yes.’
Thirdlow spoke to him for the first time. A couple of candles guttered. I could smell the red scent from her gun again.
‘You are in no danger. We will not harm you.’
I was learning about her: learning fast. So I wondered about that. I wondered if she would leave a witness alive.
All he said was, ‘Yes.’
She persisted, ‘It is sad, but an accident. He came here to help yet another man . . .’
‘His cousin, yes.’
‘Do you have news of him?’
‘You will kill him too?’
‘No. We told you. We came to help.’
He turned away from us, and snuffed one of the candles between a finger and thumb.
‘I hope I never have to ask you to help me.’
I asked his back, ‘Is the pilot alive?’
‘Yes, he is alive and well, and is being recovered. I will not tell you how, but you need not concern yourself any longer. Go home.’
‘Did the dead man know his cousin was being rescued?’
‘Yes. I told him this morning when he arrived. He had been driving around in the mountains for days looking for him. Everyone knew – and the wolves were gathering. I doubt that he would have escaped unharmed anyway. You saved the patriots a bullet, that’s all. If you stay here they will come for you too.’
I suppose that the priests had a hard line to draw. Priest or patriot? Which comes first? I won’t make the cheap point of observing that it’s odd how often different elements of the Christian religion use their faith to justify murders. Except that I just did.
We got into our next battle in a village, and for once you have to believe that it wasn’t my fault. The place was built around a farmyard and named Agios Nikolaos Something-or-other. When the Orthodox Greeks set out to name their saints they promoted enough of them to raise a battalion, and St Nick was just one of them. We had dropped down on to the southern foothills of the Troodos after a five-minute stop to swallow the last of the water, and top up the Humber from my jerrycan. I had to watch the car’s water temperature; the gauge kept on stealing into the red. No one had pointed a weapon at us for at least an hour, so things were looking up. I’d given the hermit a handful of money to say prayers for Pat Tobin, and clean his body up, and told him someone would come to collect it later. I didn’t want to think about Pat yet . . . I knew that would come later, and anyway, in my book the days of the British not abandoning the bodies of their dead were long gone. I didn’t want him in the car with us. Thirdlow reckoned I was making a mistake, but didn’t argue her case that strongly.
The road south ran through the farmyard, and when we arrived it was like the Lincoln County War down there. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid must have been just around the corner. We heard the gunshots from a mile away, and I coasted the car down towards them with the engine switched off, the way you still could in the fifties.
I stopped on a bend in the track which called itself a road, looking down on a farmyard and a huddle of buildings. I told you already that I reckoned Thirdlow was prepared for anything; she proved it by opening her bag and producing a dinky set of Zeiss binoculars. She scanned the scene below us and said, ‘There’s an army Bedford in front of the house – flat tyres. British soldiers in the house and the animal sheds. The terrorists are in a grove of trees and on the hillside opposite. They look fairly evenly matched.’
‘And you want to join in?’
‘That’s the general rule – we don’t walk away from fights out here. What do you think?’
‘The road goes between the two sides, right?’
‘Right.’
‘We’d never make it. It turns sharp left the other side of the farmyard. I’d have to slow for the corner – we’d be a sitting duck.’
‘Agreed. We could always stay back, and see what happens. If that squad has a functioning radio they’re bound to have called in the cavalry.’
‘But you don’t want to do that . . .’
‘No. When the GCs pull out they could come in this direction, in which case you and I will be stuffed. I think there are about twenty of them dug into that hill.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Hide the car, and work our way down to the edge of the yard. Then we’ll throw a light barrage down on the GCs, hope some squaddy realizes that there’s a third element to the fight, and lets us in when we race for the farmhouse door. I can see it’s open.’
I gave her proposition a microsecond’s thought and said, ‘OK. I’m with you.’
‘You’re not going to argue?’
‘Why should I? You’re trained to
