‘You know what?’ Gully said.
‘What?’ Cotton asked.
‘I think you’re bloody barmy.’
‘That’s what Docherty thought,’ Cotton pointed out. ‘I think he was wrong. I think you’re wrong.’
He was quite unperturbed by Gully’s opinion. Though Gully had been right about the weather, and it had not only rained, it had poured, and he had spent a wretched night under an overhang in the stream bed with Howard, hidden from the boat, damp, chilled and miserable, watching the trickle of water by his feet grow wider and faster until it lapped his shoes. But at least Howard had been dry and it had seemed safer there than on the boat where they might have been surprised and unable to get him away.
Docherty studied the lopsided launch. With her tilted deck and mast and the smashed wheelhouse, she looked a total wreck. ‘Suppose the Germans come and set fire to her?’ he said.
‘And suppose they don’t,’ Gully added. ‘What’s the difference? She won’t shift. So we’ve got guns and petrol but no bloody boat.’
‘There’s the other boat,’ Cotton pointed out patiently. ‘That girl said she was in better shape than this one.’
Gully grunted. ‘I still think you’re barmy,’ he said.
Cotton shrugged. He’d been called a few names in his time. ‘It takes all sorts to make a Marine,’ he said, unperturbed. ‘We once had a woman in the corps even. She was wounded six times at Pondicherry and finally kept a pub at Wapping.’
Gully stared at him as if he were mad but Bisset, guessing what it was that was driving Cotton, broke into an unexpected grin.
Gully shrugged. ‘I still think you’re barmy.’
Cotton didn’t bother to answer. What was in his mind would never have made sense to a civilian. Though Gully didn’t know it, he’d been prowling round even before first light, looking for a safe place to hide Claudia’s guns, the dinghy and the petrol.
‘I mean—’ Gully was just beginning to get properly wound up ‘—what can four of us do to a set of Germans?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ Cotton said calmly. ‘I expect I shall think of something.’
‘I mean – getting us up at this bloody hour, with nothing to eat in our bellies, swimming around picking up guns and things!’
Stark naked and looking like a large skinned bulldog, Cotton sat in the dinghy between the two dripping Lewis guns, shivering. ‘I’m doing the swimming,’ he pointed out. ‘Me and Docherty. You’re just sitting in the boat pulling on the oars. I don’t know what you’re complaining about.’
‘What are you going to do with the bloody guns anyway?’
‘Shoot Germans, I expect,’ Cotton said off-handedly. ‘I haven’t worked it out proper yet.’
They landed the Lewis guns and, while Cotton stripped them down, Bisset carefully wiped the parts and greased them well. When they’d assembled them, Gully and Bisset rowed the dinghy out again, towing Cotton in the water behind. Docherty had started working in the silent engine room.
‘Did you ever swim the Channel by any chance?’ Gully asked.
‘No.’ Cotton answered seriously. ‘You need a lot of fat on you for that. Like you.’
While Gully and Bisset waited in the dinghy, Cotton took the end of the heaving line and dived down into the clear water among the rocks and the waving seaweed and the sea urchins under Claudia’s stern, and attached it to the barrel of the 20mm. As he burst to the surface, gasping, Bisset and Gully began to heave.
The rest of the weapon followed and Bisset pulled for the shore, with Gully sitting in the stern and Cotton swimming alongside. Cleaning and pulling the gun through, they greased it like the Lewises; then, wrapping all three weapons round with shreds of clothing rescued from the forecastle, they stuffed them under the rocks in a hole Cotton had found, and covered them carefully. Cotton was in no doubt about what he was doing. His mind was clicking along precisely now, like a ship’s chronometer, ticking off each item as it occurred to him.
When they’d hidden the guns, he cleared the beach of footprints with a branch torn off one of the overhanging trees. As he finished, he found he was standing near the graves the Germans had dug. The papers the German sergeant had stuck on the stakes all read the same thing: ‘Ein unbekannter Englishche Matrose,’ a small gesture of respect from one fighting man to another.
He glanced to the north. The faint thud of guns which had died away during the night had started again. The high hilts seemed to muffle the sound but it was always there, insistent and menacing.
They were among the bushes in the stream bed, bending over Howard, when the girl returned. There were three men with her this time, the third one the same age as Petrakis, wearing black shabby clothes and tall boots and carrying with him the smell of an unwashed body. Cotton noticed that Petrakis was carrying a towel and the third man, whom he assumed was Xilouris, was leading a donkey laden with a folded rubber dinghy, encouraging it along with cricket-like noises made with the mouth. ‘Psoo! Psoo!’
‘Kalò ksiméroma,’ the girl said. ‘Good morning.’
‘Where’s the boat you promised?’ Cotton said immediately, his face full of suspicion.
She gestured towards the sea. ‘The Germans came to the village,’ she said. ‘They are commandeering boats. It was difficult.’
‘The kid’ll die if he doesn’t see a doctor.’
She knelt alongside Howard. He seemed to have recovered a little and managed to smile at her. ‘Hello, Mum,’ he said.
The girl lifted her face. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘They will come tomorrow. Please understand. They are willing to help. They will look after him in Ay Yithion.’
Cotton wasn’t so sure and his mind was full of nagging doubts. ‘What about the Germans if they find him?’ he said.
‘It’s a chance we must take. We are Christians and there is a doctor. They would never turn him away.’
Cotton searched his conscience. He’d heard of Germans deporting or even shooting people who hid British prisoners of war. He wasn’t sure that he had the right to ask. He stared at Howard. The boy’s face was grey and he knew they certainly couldn’t care for him themselves much longer. He nodded, still unwilling to push the responsibility on to someone else.
Petrakis interrupted. He had listened to the exchange with barely concealed irritation, as though a dreadfully hurt boy was no concern of his. He pointed towards the hill.
‘She will take you to the other boat,’ he said.
He seemed eager to be rid of them and Cotton frowned. ‘Aren’t you coming, too?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘The Germans’ll be back soon,’ Cotton said. ‘To pump out the tanks. They’ll be coming round by boat. We heard them say so.’ He looked at Howard. He felt dreadfully hampered by the wounded boy and for the first time he realised how it was that senior officers could take the decision to leave their injured behind. It had always seemed a cold-blooded thing to do but at that moment he knew just what prompted it.
For a moment they were at a loss what to do with the boy. The three Greeks hadn’t waited to see what decision they’d make and had already begun to head towards the beach. Cotton watched them, narrow-eyed and suspicious; then Bisset volunteered to stay behind with Howard while the rest of them went to inspect Loukia.
‘He’s all right here,’ he said. ‘He’s out of the sun and well away from the boat, and he won’t be seen if the Germans come.’
They seemed to have no choice and, leaving Bisset sitting under the overhang where Cotton had spent the night, they set off after the girl.
The cliffside was full of heather and thistles – all occupied by outsize hornets – saxe-blue flax, magenta covered with butterflies, and pink and white roses. Here and there were deep ravines, their bottoms filled with the carmine of oleanders, and among the shrubs yellow-throated bee-eaters and hoopoes moved. Over it all, the polished quality of the Grecian light seemed to make everything crystal clear, while the sea behind them shimmered like a peacock’s feathers.
The girl talked all the time they were climbing the cliff. She seemed in far better physical condition than Cotton and didn’t even pant.
‘This island is supposed to have been the home of Aeolus,’ she said. ‘He was the wind god. The one who brought all the breezes. He was supposed to have lived in a cave below the sea and stirred them all up and sent them out to cause storms.’
They were fairly high by this time, following a shallow ravine, and the sea looked a metallic blue, with leaden shades in the shadow of the cliff. The heat had not started yet, but it was still very warm scrambling up a muddy path that the previous night’s rain had made a stream bed, with stones and lips of rock underfoot.
After a while the girl looked at Cotton and stopped as something occurred to her.
‘You understand Greek very well,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Where did you learn it?’
‘In London.’
‘At school?’
‘No. From a Greek family.’
She gave him a quick smile and for a second he realised just how attractive she could look when she wasn’t wearing her grave, preoccupied expression. But it faded quickly and she gave a little frown.
‘Greeks are very inquisitive,’ she said. ‘You have only to arrive in Greece and immediately someone questions you on your origins, family, work and why you have come. I think that’s why Greeks are so hospitable. They really only want to know about you.’
Cotton didn’t attempt to enlighten her about his background. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Where did you learn German?’
‘At school. We learned English also. We have never forgotten that your Lord Byron died for Greece. But we also learned German because Germany isn’t far away and we always had many German visitors. I worked in a hotel for a long time and I learned to speak it well.’
‘And now?’
‘I was visiting relatives on Spiridos for a holiday when the Germans invaded Yugoslavia. I set off home at once but when I reached here the ferries stopped because they had bombed the Piraeus. The harbour suffered terrible damage. The radio said the noise could be heard in Athens.’
‘And your parents and family?’
Her face showed no emotion, as if it had all long since been expended and her tears had dried. ‘We had a house close by the water,’ she said. ‘I managed to telephone my aunt and she told me they had all disappeared. She said there was nothing left. I think I will stay here.’
Cotton said nothing. He couldn’t even try to imagine what she was feeling. How did you offer sympathy to someone whose country was collapsing about their ears?
She paused, her eyes troubled. ‘I didn’t like the thought of German soldiers on Greek soil,’ she went on. ‘My cousin was the same. He was in Kalani. He went there because there was more work than in Crete.’
She seemed to be talking for the sake of talking and, when Cotton didn’t reply, she tried another tack.
‘Greece is the birthplace of democracy,’ she said. ‘And Greeks are all fighters. Alexander the Great was a Greek, and so was Leonidas the Spartan, who held off the Persians at Thermopylae.’ She gave a sad little smile. ‘Unfortunately, our forebears lived in a golden age and we have little left now of our greatness. But perhaps our past is useful. Chrysostomos thinks so. He was always in trouble with the police for his political views and he never got himself a job. I stay in Yithion and have started to do odd jobs for Dendras Varvara. He owns fishing boats and is very kind.’
Cotton glanced back. Petrakis and the other Greeks were launching the rubber dinghy. ‘Is your cousin a Communist?’ he asked.
‘He’s always been anti-Fascist. There’s no harm in that.’
Cotton frowned. ‘So long as he’s fighting the Germans, not me,’ he said. ‘Are all Greeks Communists like your cousin?’
She laughed. ‘You should see them at church listening to the blessed Eucharist! You can’t believe in Christ and in Communism as well. The fishermen are very devout. They are so much at the mercy of the Lord as they go about their business. Why?’
‘We need their help,’ Cotton said. ‘I’m going to get one of these boats off the beach and take her away. You could come too, if you wanted.’ He was offering a bribe in the hope that it would encourage her to drum up assistance. ‘Anybody else as well. Perhaps those people the Germans might imprison.’ They stopped on the ridge at the top of the cliffs. From there the sea looked as dead as a pane of frosted glass, but the wide green valley inland came into view, perfect, full of a thousand greens and with the sort of blue sky above it you saw nowhere except in the Mediterranean. As they set off down the other side they could see even to the north shore of the island, the blur of grey that was Kalani, and a scattering of houses to the west which was a village. As they descended further, they passed dog roses, poplars, ilex, and cacti, and a few wild figs. Then, as they turned, they saw a promontory and beyond it, just below them, another group of white houses.
‘That’s Yithion,’ the girl said. ‘The fishermen have all been to see what they can salvage from the boat. But there’s nothing left now and Chrysostomos has claimed it.’
‘Are they afraid of Chrysostomos?’
She shrugged. ‘He has guns. You saw them.’
‘What does he intend to do with it?’
‘The same as you, I think. Repair it and escape from the Germans.’
‘Then why won’t he help us so we can all escape together?’
She gave a sad, disillusioned smile. ‘Perhaps because you are not a Communist. He is very stubborn. Giorgiou Xilouris arrived from Antipalia some days ago. I think he is a Communist too, and they keep their help only for people who believe as they do. They’re planning to take the boat away together.’