Murchison found himself fighting a rearguard action on the front-line as the Germans advanced. He joined two Kiwis from the New Zealand brigade that had been fighting with the battalion’s C Company. The three Anzacs linked with six Greeks who had drifted towards the action when their own army had disintegrated. Two of them had lost their boots and had replaced them with sacking bound around their feet. The leader of the little band of Greek fighters was Stavros, 30, a bearded, muscular, 183 cm former academic. His English was good. He explained to the Antipodeans: ‘Why should we go home? Should we wait for the Nazis to come and destroy our villages and families? Just because our army is defeated, we, as individuals, are not. You are foreigners fighting our fight! We want to help you!’
Murchison and the Kiwis, Archie and Bash, were delighted at the Greek attitude and the nine rogue fighters together moved south of Servia Pass as night fell. They had one advantage over the oncoming enemy. They were a small enough group to be able to determine where the Germans, in their thousands, were situated. They could hear and see them. They could smell and see smoke from their camp fires and it was this that encouraged the group to make audacious moves. They had the element of surprise. But after dark, the surprise was for them when a German truck lumbered off the road in their direction. The group hid behind rocks, primed their rifles and watched. The Germans stopped at the foot of a mountain and proceeded to set up camp.
The little Allied team could hear the Germans shouting and laughing.
‘Two officers and about ten men,’ Stavros whispered to the others. ‘They are a vanguard scout group.’
‘It’d be good to get their truck,’ Archie murmured. He was a nuggety fellow with a black beard that gave him a threatening look. Murchison had nicknamed him ‘Ned’—after Ned Kelly.
The others mumbled their agreement.
‘That means raiding them,’ Murchison whispered. All were for it. Murchison organised that they surround the enemy camp and then charge in firing.
‘No using taking them bloody prisoner,’ Bash said. He was tall and angular, and also had a beard but with a reddish tinge.
‘Okay,’ Murchison whispered, ‘I’ll go for the officers. Knock ’em out first.’
He signalled with a dropping of a hand held high and led the charge into the camp, firing and yelling. His first shot hit an officer in the forehead and he slumped to his knees, killed instantly. The other officer reached for his Luger pistol but, before he could fire it, one of the Greeks slipped in from behind and ran a knife across his throat. Three other enemy soldiers fell the same way and the others bolted into the dark, with the Greeks firing and yelling after them. Stavros ordered them back. Murchison took one officer’s cap and wore it. Stavros took another. Murchison removed the Luger from his victim’s holster and jammed it in his belt. One of the Greeks grinned and handed him one of the Germans’ knives. Murchison slid that into his belt too. He then went through the pockets of the dead officers and removed their gold wristwatches. Archie and Bash, both motor mechanics by trade, had the truck humming in a minute. The little Anzac–Greek band rumbled off down the road, passing a group of German soldiers marching in the same direction.
‘Stay steady,’ Murchison said, ‘and hidden. They’ll see our caps. They’ll salute. They can’t see us properly in the dark.’
As predicted, all the German soldiers gave rigid salutes. Murchison, with a quick, arrogant glance at them, saluted perfunctorily in response, just as he imagined a German officer would.
‘Not like us,’ Murchison laughed, ‘so fucking disciplined!’
Stavros translated for his Greek men and they all gave understanding grins.
They rumbled along the potholed road.
‘Reckon we’re out of the enemy zone,’ Bash remarked after half an hour. ‘Better change trucks. Don’t want any Anzacs to blow us apart.’
‘Yeah,’ Murchison agreed, ‘but where from?’
‘Don’t worry about it, sport,’ Arch said, ‘Bash and I can get anything to work.’
They passed several burnt-out vehicles before Arch pointed to an Australian truck, which appeared in bad shape. Bullet holes pockmarked the sides and the roof had two big dents from bomb fragments. They stopped. Archie and Bash bustled straight into action. They hot-wired the ignition. The engine coughed and died. This happened several times while the others surrounded the trucks, watching for any possible attackers. The two Kiwis slid under the truck and after some mechanics’ talk, fiddled with the engine. Inside ten minutes they had the vehicle’s engine purring. The rogue ‘crew’ jumped in, and they bumped off down the road, slipping into alarming road dips caused by bomb craters.
After another hour they were stopped at a roadblock by a small Anzac force.
‘Halt!’ an Australian voice called.
‘Yeah sure, mate,’ Murchison replied, ‘we’re all diggers.’ And with a laugh added, ‘Well, honorary ones, anyway.’
Don Gill had become lost searching for the battalion personnel in two missing trucks near Larissa. Travelling past the town, his bike had broken down after he had been driven off the road in a Stuka attack. He was close to a truck that had also taken evasive action sending up a wall of dust. It was just the sign that Stukas and single German Henkel bombers looked for. Minutes after the first attack, one such lone Henkel could be seen wheeling around at low altitude in the distance. Gill was about to find better cover when he saw six of his battalion gunners jump from the truck with their weapons. The sergeant among them called: ‘Aircraft! Action! Fire!’
The Henkel came swooping so low that it looked as if it might land. The gunners fired and caused the pilot to be distracted enough for him to jerk the controls. The plane’s bullets whistled over the gunners and into a swampy field beyond the road. The Henkel pilot pulled out of his skimming ride and climbed away. Gill yelled to the gunners.
‘Can you shoot?’ the sergeant called back.
‘Yes!’ Gill replied. He was ordered to grab a weapon from the truck and line up next to them, which he did. The Henkel came in again as Gill, cool as ever, assembled the weapon. He was looking through the sights as the German plane swung low at them. All the gunners opened up too early this time, except for Gill, who was not quite ready. He aimed just as the Henkel dropped two bombs, one which slid over the other side of a mound, and another that seemed right on them. But it did not explode; instead it clunked hard onto the ground about 20 metres clear of them, dead centre in the road. Gill kept firing as the Henkel roared away. The plane seemed to tilt a fraction, then a thin trail of smoke spiralled from it, causing it to lose altitude over the hills on the horizon. The gunners did not wait to hear the crash or see if smoke billowed up. Gill joined them as they all dashed for the truck, aware that the unexploded bomb could detonate. When they were a few hundred metres away, the sergeant offered Gill a smoke. ‘I think you got yourself a “kill,” cobber,’ he said, low-key. ‘Congratulations.’
One by one the gunners shook his hand without much more than a grunt and a brief grin.
‘Bit of a lucky strike,’ Gill said, matter-of-factly. ‘Haven’t fired one since practice at Salisbury Plain.’
The sergeant shook his head, dragged on his cigarette, smiled and said: ‘It’s never lucky when you hit ’em, Dig, never.’
Like Murchison, Gill had little choice but to stay with this splinter group. But he was happy to do so. Seeing the calm manner in which they had set themselves up ready for combat, he knew they would have a chance of reaching south to the battalion base, with a slice of luck.
Later Gill’s group stopped for a further smoke and feed off the main road and down a dirt track to an olive grove close to a creek. They came across a group of eight Greeks who looked dispirited and bedraggled. Their leader explained they had not eaten for two days. The gunners offered them food and drink, which the Greeks readily accepted. After a half-hour, Gill and the gunners decided to have a wash in the creek. They were all filthy and had not had this chance at luxury for days. Finding soap in the truck, the Australians stripped and entered the creek, spreading along it about 30 metres. The Greeks remained smoking and eating, which was their luxury moment too. A few minutes later a squadron of Stukas came floating by high above from a southerly direction, indicating they had probably dropped all their bombs for that particular run. But when they saw the band of Allies, they decided to change course and strafe them, hoping for an extra bonus kill or two at the end of a day’s work. The Australians called for the Greeks to take cover, and did so themselves, jamming close to rocks in the creek. But the fatigued Greeks seemed to have a careless attitude. They sat where they were and continued to eat and smoke. The Stukas hit in a one-off run and bullets spat and kicked up dust right through the camp. Three Greeks were hit. The Australians dashed out of the creek to help. One Greek had been killed and the other two were injured. The gunners, who all knew first aid, dressed the wounds. But within 20 minutes a second Greek died. The little Allied party buried the two men and took off in the truck with the third victim, who had been hit in the arm and shoulder.
When asked later why they had not tried to find cover, one of the Greeks said that they’d had so many narrow escapes that they thought their chances of being hit were the same whatever they did. It was a little too fatalistic for the pragmatic gunners but they understood the reason for the attitude, and the odds.
The next morning, 24 April, Murchison’s band of Allies drove to a Greek inn in the village of Ulanda, which was the home town of a couple of the team. The innkeeper and several other locals were regaled with the story of the previous night’s escapade. Wine, beer and whisky were soon being consumed. Murchison broke into a song about his battalion’s division (the 6th) and ‘Old Blamey’s Boys.’ He was off-key but wine had oiled his tonsils enough for a stirring rendition, which boomed out into the street. He climbed onto a table. The Greeks and Kiwis surrounded the table and tried to sing along, with Stavros explaining a few of the lines he could comprehend, which included a chorus of: ‘Old Blamey’s boys, 6th Divvy boys, Fighting for victory, liberty, democracy … !’
They were in full cacophonous flight when Brooker and Moody walked in. Murchison jumped from the table just as Horrie, his behind in a permanent whirl of joy, struggled from Moody’s coat to greet Murchison, who picked him up and held him high.
‘Horrie!’ he yelled to the rogue group. ‘This is the most important member of my battalion! He is our angel dropped into the desert to become our watchdog! Saved every one of us at some time or another!’
The Greeks crowded in to make a fuss of Horrie, who couldn’t get enough of it. Murchison told them of the dog’s exploits. Horrie began licking Murchison’s dirt-smeared face and blood on his tunic. Moody noticed it and asked if it was his.
‘No, mate,’ Murchison said, removing his German officer’s cap, ‘the claret belongs to a very dead enemy officer.’ He handed Moody the cap. ‘As does this …’ and tapped the Luger, ‘and this …’ indicating the knife in his belt.
Murchison told the tale of their night. As he did so, Horrie wandered outside and along the street, looking for a butcher’s shop. He passed an overcoated man of about 35, wearing a black beret and sitting on a bench, sketching buildings in the street. Horrie stopped to sniff a parcel on the bench. The man muttered and lashed out with his boot. It caught Horrie a glancing blow on the side. The dog yelped and jumped back, more in fright than hurt, just as Moody came out of the inn looking for him.
‘Hey!’ Moody called. ‘Don’t you touch that dog!’
He hurried up to the man and remonstrated with him. The man pretended not to understand and went on sketching. Moody was in two minds about reprisals, but after a quick examination of Horrie, whose pride had been hurt and nothing else, decided against it. He picked up Horrie and was walking back to the inn when a middle-aged Greek woman approached him. She kept pointing at the man on the bench saying under her breath: ‘Kataskopos! Kataskopos!’
Moody brought her into the inn, where she spoke to the Greeks. It was soon ascertained that the man was not from their village. He had been sitting and sketching for several hours. The woman said he was more interested in the military moving through the village, especially the trucks’ markings, than drawing the quaint shopfronts. Three of the Greeks from Murchison’s rogue group slung their rifles over their shoulders and hurried out. Murchison, Moody and Brooker followed. When the man noticed the group marching his way, he jumped from the bench, grabbed his parcel and ran out of the village.
The Greeks broke into a run after him. One fired his rifle above the man’s head. When a second bullet whistled closer, the man stopped and raised his hands, one of which still clutched a sheaf of papers; the other held the parcel. Murchison was angry. He wanted to deal with the man.
‘If he’s a bloody spy, we should execute him!’ he yelled.
Brooker and Moody restrained him.
‘Let them handle it,’ Moody said. ‘It’s their village and he’s Greek.’
‘Yeah, and take that bloody cap off before someone puts a bullet in you by mistake!’ Brooker said. It was a sobering thought for Murchison, who pocketed the cap.
The Australians, with Horrie back in Moody’s coat but with his head poking out inquisitively, watched as the Greeks examined the papers that the interloper was reluctant to hand over. They discarded the artwork and became animated over the other hidden sheets. The Greeks abused and spat on the man. They marched him about 30 metres into some woods. Less than a minute later, two shots rang out. After administering their rough justice, the Greeks returned and showed the Australians about 20 sheets. Each carried notes on all the Allied vehicles, personnel and other military details. The parcel had two pieces of equipment hidden under meat that had attracted Horrie. The signallers recognised parts of a radio transmitter.
Murchison led them all back to the inn. He took one of the watches he had rifled from the German officers, placed it on the counter as payment and ordered drinks for everyone. Brooker pocketed the watch, telling Murchison he would regret selling it. More Greek soldiers wandered in and the party continued. But some home truths were revealed. Murchison was adamant that the Anzacs would have to evacuate. He spoke of what he had just been through and how fragmented the Allied and Greek armies were now, just marauding groups like his little rogue force. In his euphoric state he reckoned that the Greeks could be organised into a resistance movement in the hills.
‘And how long would that last?’ Brooker asked. ‘The Germans would overwhelm us easily. They have the numbers. They’ve got a dominant air force and tanks.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Murchison replied, ‘so if we got tired of fighting we could commandeer fishing boats for a chug-chug across the deep blue Mediterranean to Egypt, couldn’t we?’
They were soon drowned out by the roar of applause for the news that Turkey had declared war on Germany. Greeks jumped on tables and chairs and began singing. The party atmosphere increased and the alcohol flowed. Soon the patrons were overflowing into the street. There was wild talk about what Turkey’s intervention could mean. Further speculation fuelled rumours that the British might rush more troops and more equipment to Greece for a counterattack.
‘Why would Churchill bother about the “underbelly of Europe” now?’ Moody asked as they went outside to be heard, ‘when the Germans have effectively won Greece and he has more than enough on his hands in Western Europe?’
‘Exactly,’ Brooker said, ‘we are finished here. It’s going to be a backs-to-the-wall fight all the way.’
Just when they were contemplating the immediate future, Horrie began barking. He darted towards a lean figure so covered in mud and grime that he was almost unrecognisable until his distinctive throaty voice greeted them with ‘G’day, Rebels!’
It was Gill, who was embraced by a relieved Moody. Horrie did a little jig. Gill’s arrival with news that Featherstone, Fitzsimmons and Harlor had been found and were back at camp called for another round of celebratory drinks. Brooker was overjoyed that his little band of Rebels was back together, almost, and intact. And there was a further positive feeling that during the day many of the 6th Division’s combat troops had reached the area. There were plenty of soldiers left in what now seemed a lost cause.
‘You know what day it is tomorrow?’ Brooker asked. ‘It’s Anzac Day—25 April. A good omen that the Rebels are united again …’