Next day everything got much worse. No runner came, and suddenly it would have made no difference if he had. For two hundred of the enemy moved into Saktouria. Our way of escape from the island was blocked. We had to begin all over again.
The southern Messara was stiff with troops; they had moved into Saktouria. Were they going to advance further west and garrison every possible getaway beach? There was only one remedy: for me to leave Billy in charge of the party and head further west, but not beyond touch; to locate our other stations, and if possible, lay hands on one of the sets; and get up-to-date intelligence about the chances for new escape routes. I knew that Billy would be all right with Manoli and Antoni and the rest. The moment I had managed to fix things up, they would make their way westward and join me. The thing was to find a place where a ship could drop anchor and get away in it fast before the Germans moved in; otherwise we might find that all our earths had been stopped. Never has divisibility into three been more longed for: the ability to stay with the party; to sit huddled over a wireless set in touch with Cairo; and to peer down through the rocks at a beach where no Germans were.
After sunset on the 4th of May George and I changed our appearance to that of peaceful rustics, climbed out of our prickly home and set off along the Amari. We dossed down for the night with George’s family at Phourphouras. Next morning we followed the more northern of the two Amari ravines; they are separated by the hill of Samitos, bristling with old windmills. To the south, all the pretty villages we had haunted for years — Ay Yanni, Aya Paraskevi, Khordaki, Ano Meros, Dryes, Vrysses, Kardaki, Gourgouthes, Smiles and Yerakari — flashed along the foothills of Mount Kedros; Ida soared on our right. The transparent spring weather and the buoyant air, the corn, poppies, anemones, asphodels, woods, brooks, the millions of birds — all this, and the opening of a new phase after the staid anxiety of waiting, and above all, being able to move fast and freely by daylight, made everything full of open promise. At least we were moving again.
About midday, there was noise like far-off thunder from the south-east away beyond our hideout; it sounded like a naval battle. We only learnt what it was that evening. The Germans were first bombing and then blowing up with dynamite, house by house in their methodical fashion, the villages of Saktouria, Margarikari, Lokria and Kamares; nobody executed, as far as we could discover. Owing to the disturbed situation, most of the inhabitants were outside their villages, especially at night. The German reasons for this onslaught were that these villages were all hotbeds of bandits, the haunts of the British, hiding places of terrorists, refuges for commandos attacking aerodromes and supply dumps, the hiding places for unnumbered weapons, and the supply point for hundreds of bad men. In Lokria, it said in the official bulletin the next day, there had been no less than ten British officers on the 3rd of May: double the numbers of BLOs in the island. Margarikari, the village of ‘the arch-bandit Petrakoyeorgi’, had been destroyed because he had celebrated Easter there with thirty-five of his brigands and all the villagers ‘had shown their sympathy with the outlaws’. Moreover, when he and his men had descended to the village for the funeral of the arch-bandit’s mother the whole village had flocked to the church and five priests had sung the requiem. Saktouria was utterly wiped out, the German government said, for the part it had played in the infiltration of arms. (A gun-running trip had landed thirty mule loads of rifles a month before, which had then fanned out all over Crete.) The article ended with another diatribe about the captors of the General: ‘Cretans, beware! The edge of the German sword will strike down every one of the guilty men and all the bandits and all the henchmen and hirelings of the English.’
The reading out loud next day of this communiqué and leading article in the Parateretes, the official German Greek-language newspaper, produced the usual reaction of rage and stoicism. So many villages had been burnt, and so many people shot, that these tragedies had, in the end, blotted out all emotions but the thirst for revenge. They had no deterrent effect. Each hecatomb sent a swarm of recruits into the mountains. They were illogical and haphazard, and the shelter of an outlaw on the run or a handful of British stragglers called down the same thunderbolts as the destruction of a squadron of Messerschmitts by sabotage. So, even had the Cretans been disposed to conform, lesser and greater misdeeds were equally dangerous, so, apart from elementary care, it was as well to be killed for a sheep as a lamb.
Some harmless villages, on the same principle as the reprisal shooting of random hostages picked up in the street, were destroyed, but on the whole it was the rebellious villages of the mountains, famous or notorious for years, which bore the brunt; when the time came, any excuse was used. Four months after the end of this story the enemy attacked and destroyed Anoyeia and the Amari villages and as many of the inhabitants as they could capture. The official reason given was that the villages had hidden the General and his captors instead of betraying them. (I learnt the news in hospital in Cairo.) Apart from the shattering nature of the event it was, as one can imagine, deeply upsetting that, in spite of all our insistence in keeping clear of villages and avoiding incriminating the inhabitants, this tragedy should be associated, rightly or wrongly, with the operation.
Certainly, the villagers, luckily for us, had helped us up to the hilt with food, runners, escort, protection and every kind of moral support, as if we had passed through them in procession. It is typical of the general Cretan attitude to their friends that when I got back to the island soon after, they were at pains to play down any reasons for distress. After all, they said, the stricken villages had been deep in resistance from the start, consciously running the risk of German revenge a hundred times over; something was bound to happen some time. The attack on the villages, they went on — the last of a long list of scores of such acts — were the final ones of the German occupation of Crete. They were used as a show of force and terrorism to jar the population into leaving their withdrawal unharried before all the garrisons of the fortress of Crete, which they no longer considered internally defensible, streamed westwards. There, contained by the entire guerrilla strength of the island, they fortified themselves inside the twenty-mile ‘Iron Ring’ round Canea. The destroyed villages lay in the hinterland along the flank of this line of withdrawal and dominated the ravines through which troops heading westwards would have to pass.
Bearing in mind the long time lag between the operation and its putative aftermath, which was without any precedent in the occupation, these friends thought that the Germans had accepted the line put forward in our letter; all, on principle, would have gone as we had hoped. But, in the months after our departure, by which time our route must have become widely known, details of the operation must have travelled from mouth to mouth until a garbled version reached the wrong ears, and finally those of the enemy. So, when the Germans felt it tactically expedient to strike at some of the villages they considered of particular danger, what pretext — there always had to be one — could be handier than the part these villages had played in spiriting away their General?
These were consoling words; never a syllable of blame was uttered. I listened to them eagerly then, and set them down eagerly now. [1]
Among the cypresses of Pandanasa George and I ran into a hitch. The Hieronymakis family, we knew, were in touch with at least one of our wireless stations. By ill luck it was about the only village in the region where neither of us had ever been. The Hieronymakis knew all about us, we knew all about them, but we had never met and there was no one to vouch for us. The old men were adamant: ‘You say you are Mihali, Mihali who? And who are Siphi (Ralph Stockbridge) and Pavlo (Dick Barnes)? Never heard of them. Tk, tk, tk! Englishmen? But, boys, all the English left Crete three years ago . . .?’
The white whiskered faces turned to each other for corroboration, beetling brows were raised in puzzlement, blank glances exchanged. They went on calmly fingering their amber beads, politely offering coffee. It was no good raging up and down, gesticulating under the onions and paprika pods dangling from the beams: every attempt to break through was met by identical backward tilts of head with closed eyelids and the placidly dismissive tongue click of the Greek negative. They wouldn’t give an inch until they knew (as they say) what tobacco we smoked. We could, after all, be agents provocateurs. (There had been rumours in the past of Germans pretending to be English stragglers and a few rare cases of Greek spies, usually recruited by scouring the civilian gaols, who wandered the hills pretending to be resistance people on the run in order to find out and reveal to the enemy for money where guerrillas or arms were hidden. When captured they were shot like vermin. I hoped they didn’t think we were such a couple.) They were vague, smiling and inflexible.
This impressive but exasperating wall of security was only broken at last, after two precious hours of deadlock, by the entry of Uncle Stavro Zourbakis from Karines — I think it was him — a friend of us all. Everything dissolved at once — in greetings, recognition, laughter, raki, a crackle of thorns and sizzling in the hearth and the immediate summoning and despatch of runners to the two sets in the north-west.
They had just left when a messenger arrived hot foot from the Amari with a sheaf of letters: one from Billy, saying Sandy’s runner had got through at last, dog tired after his hazardous days of travel; and one from Dick Barnes. Sandy’s letter had been sent off on the 1st of May. It was now the 5th; our messages to him had left Anoyeia on the 27th; so our two-way traffic with Cairo had taken eight days. His letter, which I have just discovered rummaging through old papers, tattered and nearly illegible, began on the 30th. After kind words about the success of the capture he went on:
We got your messages off at 2.30 today and are waiting for an answer now (7.00 p.m.), when I will send off Drake (code name for one of Sandy’s runners) by one route which he knows and the elder of my two, Manolis, by another to confirm. I hope that the boat is on the way. The messages may both get to you in time, but possibly not I fear. As you know, Huns are very thick on the ground. In any case, the message has got there, and I assume you will act if it had. I hope you fixed signals beforehand.
I received an additional wire as follows:
If not rpt not fixed with Paddy already send sigs and timing for Paddys boat all stations. Runner from here may not repeat not reach Paddy before boat due so pse confirm boat will come four following nights as well. The above is probably superfluous but in case you don’t get this message and don’t go to the spot and the boat comes that night, it still gives everyone a good chance I hope. My second messenger will try and find Tom’s haunt and thence you — but I doubt if he can make it. Everyone as you know is being stopped a good deal. Later 1.5.44 we have only just got the answer (12.30 hours); signal. Boat to Cape Melissa[2] B.605111 repeat 605111 third, fourth and four following nights. Contact Paddy urgently. All informed. Excellent work. All send congratulations. Acting on instructions your 1/7. (Our 1/7 message was about leaflets and radio broadcasts etc.) Best of luck for rest of trip and love from all here. Sandy.
In spite of the thought that the ship would be coming that night and in vain, for the third time — unless one of the other stations had warned them of the new garrison at Saktouria — Sandy’s letter was a great boost, a re-establishment of contact and a proof that Cairo was going all out to help. The news in Dick’s letter was out of date too — pre-Saktouria, that is — but it contained the signals to be flashed to the boat on whatever night and near whatever shore it should appear — MK (Monkey King) every ten minutes from 2100 GMT.
The next phase of this story seems even more confused in retrospect than it did at the time. George and I trudged on to the village of Yeni, five miles beyond Pandanasa, a point roughly equidistant from the areas vital to us. We had just learnt that the recent chaos had driven the two stations to new hideouts not far from each other, in the neighbourhood of Kato Valsamonero, south-west of Retimo, north-west of us. The coast from which I hoped we would soon be slipping away lay over the mountains due south; and the party with the General would be advancing to Yerakari — south-east — and hovering in the goat-rocks above that village until the time, the place, and the loved one could all come together at last. The fifteen-odd miles that separates me from each of these regions sounds very little. The whole of Crete is only a fifth the size of Switzerland; but distances, compared to those in Norfolk or the Gobi desert, are nearly as meaningless and these three points all seemed a long way off at the other end of risky labyrinths.
The goat-fold of Zourbovasili, at Yeni, lay in rolling biblical hills. There was a round threshing floor nearby, where George and I could sleep on brushwood with a great circular sweep of vision. This place was to become, during the next three days, the centre of all going and coming of messengers as plans changed and options elapsed. But now, after the scrum of the last few days, it seemed preternaturally quiet in the brilliant moonlight. Ida towered east of us now, Kedros due south; the White Mountains, which had come nearer to us during the day, loomed shining in the west. How empty and still after our huddled mountain life, was this empty silver plateau! A perfect place to watch the moon moving across the sky and chain smoke through the night pondering on the fix we were in and how to get out of it. (How were Billy and the General? Would the Germans move further west along the coast? Was the boat coming, failing a signal flash from teeming Saktouria, at that very moment turning wearily back to Africa for the third time — or the fourth? . . . Now read on . . . How I wished I could.) There was not a sound except a little owl in a wood close by and an occasional clank from Vasili’s flock.
A letter from Ralph Stockbridge at last! No chance of our joining forces, alas. He was acting as his own operator, his charging engine had gone wrong too, batteries constantly running flat, the people in the area were windy and the caravan that would be needed for the movement of a charging engine and a suitcase wireless, in the low country where he was hiding, far too exposed and full of troops at the moment, was not to be contemplated.
I had feared as much. (How well I knew all those hazards!) It sounded as if he was heading for Priné, an old refuge of ours blown a year ago but perhaps safe again now; these things went in cycles. (Here there would be the staunch backing of Colonel Tziphakis, the defender of Retimo when the parachutists dropped and now the regional head of the resistance movement; and of Uncle George Robola, our protector for years, a tall, white-bearded, and fearless old prophet, smoking his hookas and uttering wise saws among his beehives.)
In more leisurely times, when the Germans were safely ensconced before El Alamein and we were marooned beyond the range of all but an occasional submarine, Ralph would write letters to his colleagues, and elicit answers, in sonnet form. No time for that sort of rot now:
Already sent you two urgent messages with answers to your two previous letters with news and Cairo instructions. I suppose you never got them. Anyway the burning of Saktouria cancels their news. Whether our signals reached Cairo in time to stop boat last night, 5/6 May, heaven knows but I doubt it. Cairo say they broadcast capture of General and that he had reached Cairo, on the 30th and the 1st, and news also published in the press. Leaflets printed at once but not dropped at once because of bad flying weather. Presumably dropped by now.
I wasn’t sure whether Ralph meant the leaflets or, metaphorically, the scheme. I hoped, now, the latter, as the less attention drawn at this late hour, the better. ‘So sorry can’t come and meet you.’ Here follow the reasons I mentioned —
what I suggest is this: Saktouria and Rodakino[3] are blown. Dick had a boarding party there — and intended evacuation — eight days ago and his signals were answered by machine gun fire from the sea. They have burnt the place down and lots of Huns have been snooping round there. But, at Asi Gonia is Dennis rpt. Dennis. (Captain Dennis Ciclitira.) He has a set and an operator with him and not much to do and is leaving by next boat which is due I think in about a week in the Preveli area. I suggest you send him a runner then join him and use his set for fixing up boats etc. I will let Dick know too. This is better than runners charging about all over the place with out of date news. I told Cairo all about your situation then my batteries went flat. Damn! I have been up all night charging them. I will also get your signal off about leaving the Amari and striking w., and tell them to keep me, Dick and Dennis informed of all possibilities and changes and to do their damnedest to get something in, even a destroyer. The signals by the way are M.K. (Monkey King). Obviously you must have a set with you. Dennis is the obvious man. I have got to shift now — these bloody people are scared stiff, so write care of Joe. If you stay where you are do let Dennis know. I will keep in touch. I will also let Dick know. You may want him to join you. If so, could you send a message by mid-day tomorrow. I have already sent you two lots of cigarettes. Here are some more and a map. Love from us all. Ralph.
All this was a bit puzzling but, except for the awful idea of waiting another week before getting away, it could have been worse. Immediately after Ralph’s message came another — Costa or Dimitro Koutellidakis with letters from Billy and Manoli. Just before sunset a strong force of Germans had swarmed into the south-east end of the Amari, advanced up the valley beyond Aya Paraskevi, Hordaki and Ay Yanni, exactly where our party was hidden, in fact; then moved in open order down the valley again. It was not clear what they were up to but the whole thing was very fishy.
Guided by Andoni and Michaeli Pattakos — an old friend, always a mass of contradictions and recalcitrance when things were calm and always perfect in times of danger — and the schoolmaster of Koxaré, whose name escapes me, they had managed to get up the side of Mount Kedros in the nick of time, without being seen by the enemy in the falling dusk and without Theophilus catching any tantalising glimpse of his countrymen below. (He had been rather hurt all these days that as far as he could see, General Müller had done so little about rescuing him. If only he had known.) They had scrambled all through the night, making a welcome halt by a hut where they were distilling raki among the streams and the plane trees of Gourgouthes (it must have been the Generali and Katsendoni families, the only inhabitants of the tiny hamlet, probably helped by jovial Sotirios Monahoyios from Khordaki, seldom absent from such doings. During the heroic and hungry Albanian campaign Sotiri had heard a calf lowing behind the Italian lines, crept through the snow, threw it over his shoulders and dashed back to his own trench under a volley of bullets), and had got to a goat fold above Yerakari, the highest village on the island, while it was still dark. The General had borne up well. At the time of writing, they were both sitting in the sun, hunting their clothes for fleas, Billy said. The night’s work had brought the party a big jump closer, and, thanks to the Germans, earlier than we had planned.
Zourbovasili, who had been milking his goats, came over with a foaming cauldron and a huge loaf and we squatted round it with spoons. When he heard about the German thrash through the Amari, he stopped hammering rock salt with a stone and said, ‘Eh! General Müller is cross!’ Then he sprinkled the salt over the milk and began shaking with silent laughter. ‘He had better look out or we will capture him too.’
Dick Barnes’s messenger, when he arrived, turned out to be George Psychoundakis, who had first been Xan Fielding’s guide and runner for a long time, then mine when I had taken over Xan’s area in the west for several months. This youthful Kim-like figure was a great favourite of everyone’s, for his humour, high spirits, pluck and imagination and above all the tireless zest with which he threw himself into his task. If anybody could put a girdle round Crete in forty minutes, he could. George, who was a shepherd boy from the great village of Asi Gonia, later wrote a remarkable book about the whole of the occupation, and the resistance movement. I translated it from his manuscript and it was published, under the title The Cretan Runner (John Murray, London), with great success. It is a wonderful book, which I hotly recommend to anyone interested in these things. His account of those particular days is moving, very lively and funny, and always true.
This extraordinary boy not only brought a letter from Dick — but, by speeding over the whole of Retimo and setting a swarm of lesser runners in motion, he helped many of our problems on their way to solution. He found Leftheri Papayanakis from the village of Akhtounda, just inland from the stretch of coast due south of us from which I hoped we could find a German-free beach to get away. A garrison had long been established at Preveli Monastery; but what about the little cove of Karamé, on the steep southern slope of Mount Kedros? Leftheri was to spy out the land and report. Next George found and brought Yanni Katsias, for whom I had been searching, a great tough, free-booting giant like a Kazantzakis hero who knew every stone, spring, hole and footpath of the southern region mountains. Up to the neck for years in the old feuding and raiding life of these ranges, and a veteran of flock-rustling forays, he was a perfect man to guide us over old hidden tracks and keep us out of sight and away from harm. He came loping over the hills to join us with his wary and wolf-like gait. Extremely good-looking, and armed at all points, a heavily fringed turban redundantly shaded a face already by no means open; and his size and strength was such that the rifle which was never out of his hand, carried loosely at the point of balance, seemed reduced to the size and weight of a twig. A better friend than foe; luckily we had always been very fond of each other.
Dashing away to the north-west again, to the crevasse at Dryade where their wireless set was, again George returned next morning with Dick Barnes himself, an utterly convincing Cretan in boots, kerchief and shaggy cape. I feared the same difficulties about transport, while everything was still upside down, prevented his set from coming any closer; he would have had to go off the air for a day, too, just when we needed it most. Much better to leave it in situ with the Changebug[4] flying to and fro like Ariel. Should no beach be suitable due south he was in favour, unlike Ralph, of fixing up something in the Rodakino area about three days’ march westwards.
The situation over there sounded confused. During recent months, the guerrilla bands had been expanding like a crop of dragon’s teeth. A week earlier Dick’s signals out to sea had been answered by machine-gun bursts and actual mortar bombs from a German coastal craft. Then a party of Germans had marched into Rodakino and started burning the village. The Rodakiniot bands opened fire on them, and then waylaid a reinforcement which was going to join them. Then waiting till they were at very close range, they wiped out the lot, except for two prisoners. The other Germans fled from the half-burnt village leaving the place, for the moment at any rate, free of the enemy. If only it were a bit closer! I was getting very anxious lest our whereabouts became too widely known as the days passed, but if we couldn’t get away due south, the west began to beckon with a steadily increasing glow. Everything depended on the results of Leftheri’s reconnaissance.
This reunion with Dick — like many occasions in occupied Crete when one wasn’t actually dodging the enemy — became the excuse for a mild blind. ‘Mr Pavlo and I set off to Yeni,’ writes George Psychoundakis in his book,
where we found Mr Mihali (me) and Uncle Yanni Katsias. We sat there till the evening and the sun set. Yanni took us to the east side of the village where they brought us some food and first rate wine and our Keph (well-being) was great. The four of us were soon singing. Mr Mihali sang a sheep-stealing couplet to the tune of Pentozali, which went:
Ah, Godbrother, the night was dark
For lamb and goat and dam, Sir,
But when we saw the branding mark,
We only stole the ram, Sir.
The ram — the head of the flock — meant the General. It was a couplet he’d made up in the style of the old Cretan mantinada which runs:
Ah Godbrother, we couldn’t see,
The night was black and dirty,
But when we saw the branding mark,
We only rustled thirty.
(It is a satirical couplet about a sheep thief, suddenly finding out that the animals he plans to lift belong to his god-brother; but seeing his god-brother’s earmark he takes only thirty instead of the whole flock. It’s all a bit obtuse and sounds rather boastful.)
Yanni had shot an enormous hare in the afternoon, which he had cooked with oil and onions. He had come to be very fond of the Changebug as he had rescued his two small children from a village fired by the Germans a few months earlier, by running across a whole mountain range with them piggy-back. We sat late in the moonlight, emptying the demijohn. It was just what we all needed to forget the stress and anxiety of the situation. George got back with news that all was going well with the other party. I slept properly for the first time for many nights, still vaguely thinking about the problematical arrival of the boat, but, thanks to that first rate-wine, at one remove. (It’s my delight on a shiny night and the signals are Monkey King.) Dick and George Psychoundakis returned to their den next day.
Excellent communications had now been established. On the night of the 7th, the party with the General moved by an easy night march to Patsos, which was only two or three hours away from me. They were being fed and guarded by George Harocopos and his family. (George, a thoughtful and well-read boy, later to become a gifted journalist, was the son of a very poor, but very brave and kind family, all of whom had been great benefactors to the wandering British.) All was going according to plan. If only the news from the coast turned out well!
The news, when it came through at last, was bad. Leftheri had had a terribly bad time clambering about both chasms and cliffs; not only had the garrison at Preveli been doubled, but a strong German contingent had been landed by sea, presumably from Timbaki, at Keramé — the very place from which I had hoped we might escape. There were still one or two beaches which might just be used, but there was a lot of going and coming of Germans all along the coast. It was very sinister. This activity in a region so remote and desolate where they had never before set foot, coupled with the German sweep down the Amari valley, had an ominous look. Leftheri had left a man down there to keep his eye on things and send warnings of anything new. A tiny cove called Limni seemed the only likely place still left. Off went a runner to Dick with the sad tidings, and I sent Yanni Katsias to the west to see what was happening at Rodakino.
Jack Smith-Hughes, in charge of the Cretan section of Force 133 (SOE) in Cairo, must have been having an anxious time. It was only since we had regained contact that I fully realised how well we were being backed up; these goat folds and threshing floors seemed so remote from [SOE headquarters at] Rustum buildings and the traffic of the Sharia Kasr el Ani!
A runner from Dick suddenly arrived with an exciting and disturbing signal: George Jellicoe and a strong contingent of SBS Raiding Forces were landing at Limni beach on the night of the 9th/10th with orders to contact us by hook or by crook. They were bringing their own wireless kit, and fighting their way if necessary to organise the evacuation as soon as possible in collusion with me, from some other beach. No signals were included in the message, so it looked as if they were landing blind, in order not to jeopardise things by trying to combine this crash landing in Crete with the more delicate business of transporting and guarding the General.
This was terrific. George Jellicoe was — still is — a resilient, unconventional and infectious compendium of energy, intelligence and humour, and gifted with a great flair for attack and unrattled inventiveness in trouble. Better still, he had raided Crete two years earlier, having landed with three French officers and a commando force. They’d blown up a vast quantity of German planes and fuel, but, uniquely in Crete, a traitor had given them away to the Germans and loss and capture had bedevilled their almost miraculous withdrawal; so he knew just how dangerous these things could be. Since then he and his unit had been wreaking havoc behind enemy lines all over the place. I was just beginning to revel in the thought of this magical ending to our troubles when a message came from Leftheri Kallithounakis’s man at the coast: ‘Germans just moved into Limni. Keep away!’
George was due to arrive next evening, so they must already be at sea. I sent off a runner to Dick urging him to bombard Cairo with warnings to be transmitted to the ship; if there were a breakdown, as there very often was, George and his boys would be landing in the middle of a reception committee. The only solution was to rejoin Billy and the General at once, send them on further west with a strong escort in the hope of evacuation later near Rodakino, then to collect a dozen men with guns — there was no dearth of these, luckily — and dash down to the sea, and then, after dark, split into two parties and hang about in the rocks as close as we could to the Germans. When we heard the ship approaching we would start a diversion in the opposite direction which would either warn George and his raiders not to land, or, with a bit of luck and shouts across the water, guide them onto a part of the shore from which the enemy had been lured. Then, before the Germans could realise what on earth was going on, we could all hare over the mountain, hide in a cave for the next day, then at night, discreetly join the sedater western progress of the General. (It is amazing how much confusion a few people can cause in the dark.)
Judging by George Psychoundakis’ reaction when I outlined the scheme to him, I foresaw great difficulty in getting anyone to remain with the General at all. Manoli wouldn’t like it; nor would Billy, nor would the Antonies, nor would Gregori . . . George said we might draw lots for one person to stay with the General tomorrow night . . . this chat accompanied our moonlight march over the hills to Patsos. George’s final solution was to put the General in a comfortable cave, then roll a huge boulder into the entrance for one night while we all streamed south to guide o Lordos Tzelliko and his amphibian thugs ashore.
I need hardly say that this brief project came to nothing. The warning message got through allright and just as Billy and I were arranging the details, a message arrived saying the operation was postponed for several days. Rodakino sounded a likelier solution every moment. We would go west that night. Of course it was better so, but a bit of an anticlimax all the same.
1. Others are equally determined to stress the link between the reprisals on their villages with the operation; not, however, in any spirit of criticism, but rather because some odd or outlandish aspects of these doings have lodged them in people’s memory with a prominence far beyond their real importance. In Crete, singular or untoward events – especially those connected with wars – are often elaborated by hearsay, then in semi-legend, and finally in songs into versions that differ widely from the events that engendered them. This operation is no exception. Some versions stick roughly to the facts, names and places; others feel no such trammels. Mr James Notopoulos, of Harvard University USA, has written (in Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Vol. III (1960), ‘The genesis of an oral heroic poem’) an interesting pamphlet based on a long metrical sung account of the General’s capture recorded in Sphakia, where the names are roughly preserved, but many strange figures occur including a beautiful heroine and a protagonist on horseback. It is an operation in which, as time passes, more and more people, whether they took part in it or not, seem glad to have participated.
2. Two miles from Saktouria.
3. A beach further west.
4. [George.]