Thunderbolt from Navarone

‘There is nothing to forgive,’ said Andrea, and the slow fire in his eyes kindled hers, and she nodded. ‘Tell us, and we will avenge your brother.’

‘Achilles was a farmer,’ she said. ‘A farmer and a policeman. There were half-a-dozen men in the mountains, klephts, thieves, what have you. We all on this island hate the Germans, we do what we can to make their lives awkward, in small ways, you understand. But these klephts in the mountains, they were always causing trouble. For their own pleasure, not Greece’s freedom. They stole Iannis’s wine, and Spiro’s sheep, and they raped poor Athene, and every man’s hand was against them, because they were bandits, not fighters. Then last Monday they tried to steal a German patrol truck, and they were drunk, so they made a mess of it and one of them got killed.’ Her head dropped.

‘Steady,’ said Andrea, squeezing her hand.

She nodded, pushing the hair out of her eyes. ‘So on Tuesday there arrived many aeroplanes at the aerodrome, with many soldiers. And the word went round the island that from now on it was a new world, with no mercy. But these klephts either did not hear or did not want to hear. So in revenge for the killing of their man they planted a big charge of explosive at a place where the cliff overhangs the road to Antikynthos and the Acropolis, the only road, you understand.’ Mallory nodded. He understood all too well. ‘And they blew the cliff down on to the road. Nobody was passing, of course.’ Here she looked disappointed. ‘But these new soldiers came, and they climbed over the rubble. They had a new kind of uniform, mottled-looking, like the sun in an olive grove. There was one man, with a crooked face and very pale eyes, the officer. He took one person for every metre of road destroyed, he said.’ The tears were running again. ‘One hundred and thirty-one people, men, women, children, it didn’t matter. The women and children he machine-gunned. The men he hanged.’ She fell silent.

Mallory left her in peace for a couple of minutes. Then he said, ‘And the partisans?’

‘They left the island the night before the hangings. Saturday. They stole Kallikratides’ boat, and went away, who knows where, who cares? They left a note saying it was a tactical withdrawal. But we know that they were frightened that someone would catch them, us or that man Wolf, it didn’t matter – ‘

‘Wolf?’ said Mallory.

‘That’s this officer’s name. Dieter Wolf, they call him, may he rot in hell. He hanged Kallikratides, too. With his own hands.’

‘The same Dieter Wolf?’ said Andrea.

‘Sounds like it.’

Andrea nodded, heavily. In his mind he could see a village in the white mountains of Crete, dry mountains, full of the song of grasshoppers and the smell of the herbs the peasants plucked from the wild plants to eat with their lamb. But today there was another smell wafting across the ravine. The smell of smoke, the black plume that rose from the caved-in roof of the village church. The church into which a Sonderkommando had driven the women and children of the village; the church to which they had then set fire. All this because one of the patriarchs of the village had shot with his old shotgun one of the Sonderkommando he had found in the act of raping his daughter …

Andrea and Mallory had lain in cover across the unbridged ravine that separated them from the village. They had arrived too late. In the shaking disc of his field glasses an officer stood: a man in scuffed jackboots, with a white, crooked face and no hair, cleaning a knife. Later, they discovered why the knife had needed cleaning, when they found a grandfather disembowelled by the roadside. Even at this range, the officer’s eyes caught the sun pale and opaque, like slits of brushed aluminium. Then he and his troops had boarded their armoured personnel carriers and roared away down the road to Iraklion.

Andrea had found out that this man was Dieter Wolf, and promised himself and the dead of that village that he would have his revenge.

‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘God is very good.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It will be getting light,’ he said.

‘I will get dressed,’ said Clytemnestra. ‘Then I will show you across the mountains.’

She went. Doors slammed. Mallory poured Andrea a glass of wine, drank one himself, lit a cigarette.

According to Lieutenant Robinson in the bunker at Plymouth, Kynthos was a soft target. But if Dieter Wolf was here taking reprisals, that meant only one thing. Cambridge don or not, Robinson had been wrong.

He ground out his cigarette and tossed the butt into the stove. The door opened. Clytemnestra was wearing baggy black breeches, soft leather boots, a fringed shawl at her waist, a worn embroidered waistcoat lined with sheepskin over her black shirt. Her hair was bound into a black silk scarf. She looked dull, crow-black, a thing of the shadows. Only her eyes were alive, burning –

There was a thunderous knocking at the door. She shooed Andrea and Mallory on to the stairs. ‘Coming, coming,’ she said, and opened up.

Andrea’s world was keyhole-shaped. He could see very little, and his breathing was deafening in his ears. The kitchen seemed to have filled with people. There was silence, except for the shuffle of boots on tiles: not jackboots, though; boots with unnailed soles. The talk broke like a wave; a Greek wave. Despite all the noise, there were only two visitors.

‘Be quiet, be quiet!’ cried Clytemnestra. ‘Please!’ She seemed to be a woman people listened to. Silence fell. ‘Now. Ladas, what is it?’

‘There was this man,’ said Ladas. ‘Iannis the Nose saw him. He was snooping in the square, looking into cars, windows, you name it. Dressed in a soldier’s uniform. Not a German uniform: British, maybe, Greek, who knows? Straight away we thought, the partisans are back. And you may call us cowards, but you know yourself they were no better than thieves, and my poor Olympia that they shot … for a victory perhaps it might be worth losing a sister, but for those damned thieves of partisans, those Kommunisti bastards, never, God’s curse on – ‘

‘You are right,’ said Clytemnestra, soothingly, without impatience. ‘Tell me more about this man, in whom I must tell you I do not believe.’

‘He has curly hair and a thin moustache, so thin, like a worm on his lip. He carries a rifle, many grenades. When he saw me I thought he would shoot. But he vanished only, into the dark, like a ghost.’

‘Perhaps he is a ghost.’

Ladas scowled so that his mighty eyebrows nearly met his mighty moustache. He did not look like a man who believed in ghosts. ‘You know this town,’ he said. ‘It is full of spies. If a spy says to this German pig, “I have seen a ghost”, this German pig will kill people until the ghost comes to life. What can we do?’

‘Watch and pray until the ghost goes away.’

‘How can you know?’

‘This can only be a ghost. This is the way you deal with ghosts.’

There was a silence. The man with Ladas had a heavy, stupid face with small, suspicious eyes. He looked like a man who might believe in ghosts. He said, ‘She is wearing her clothes.’

‘Yes,’ said Ladas. ‘You are wearing your clothes.’

Clytemnestra looked drawn and weary. ‘When you have no man in the house,’ she said, ‘you must take the sheep to the mountain yourself. And it will soon be dawn. Now back to your beds. Some of us have work to do, even if you want to run around in the dark squeaking of ghosts.’

They left.

Clytemnestra opened the stairs door. ‘What is this?’ she said. ‘Who is in the village?’

‘Hard to say,’ said Mallory. But he knew. It was Carstairs, of course. There were things he needed to say to Carstairs. ‘It will soon be light,’ he said.

Outside, the air smelt sharp and fresh. The sky over the mountains was still deep blue and thick with stars, but low down, towards the peaks, the blue was paling.

‘This man,’ said Andrea to Clytemnestra. ‘He is one of our people.’

She walked fast through a maze of paths that wound among the gardens. ‘Then you should control him,’ she said. ‘Why is he wandering in the village like a madman? He will get people killed.’ They walked on in silence.

Something was worrying Mallory. ‘And you,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be with us. We are soldiers, in uniform. We have no connection with you. There will be no reprisals. But if they find you with us – ‘

‘If I don’t come with you, how will you find your way across the mountains?’

‘We have maps.’

She laughed, a large, scornful laugh that sent a couple of doves flapping from their roost. ‘Use them to roll cigarettes,’ she said. ‘If you use the tracks you will see on them, the Germans will find you. They have the same maps – ‘

‘Hush,’ said Mallory.

They were on the road through the dunes, approaching the southern end of the beach.

‘Down!’ said Andrea. A figure stood suddenly outlined against the paling sky. Its head was blocky with a coal-scuttle helmet, its shoulders tense over its rifle. ‘Wer da?’ it said.

Mallory’s breath was loud in his ears as he lay face down in the dunes. Andrea was at his side. Mallory knew what he would be thinking, because he was thinking it himself. The pre-dawn was quiet. The cocking lever of the Schmeisser would sound like a train crash. One shot, and it would all be over …

Clytemnestra walked forward, hips swaying insolently. ‘Who wants to know?’ she said, in Greek. ‘What murdering son of a whore comes to my home and gets between me and my work?’

‘Vas?’ said the soldier.

‘I looking for my sheeps,’ said Clytemnestra, in terrible German.

The soldier stood undecided. Mallory could not work out whether he had seen them. Beside him, Andrea sighted on the place under the man’s left shoulder blade where he would drive the knife. He put one mighty palm on the gritty soil, tensed his legs to spring –