A flotilla of small craft meandered into the Kalamata wharves and beaches and then ferried the evacuees to troop ships further out to sea. The escape was orderly although the troops were not lined up. Their selflessness and discipline, either drummed into them militarily or otherwise, saw the big assembly ease forward as the seamen manoeuvred their boats efficiently from the beach to the destroyers and back until not one digger remained. The gunners’ battalion was placed on the Defender and slipped to the troop ship Costa Rica, a chartered Dutch ship. Everyone was given a chunky corned beef sandwich garnished with relish, and a cup of hot chocolate as a ‘welcome on board.’ It was a gesture appreciated by all who just tolerated their usual food. Horrie received his sandwich and when he wolfed it down and looked up appealingly to the Dutchmen handing them out, he received a second, much to the approval of all in view. More than 3000 soldiers from the battalion and other 6th Division contingents were on board.
As dawn broke, several troop ships were steaming away from the Greek coast with the Costa Rica on the left flank, the City of London in the centre and the Delawarra on the right flank. The Costa Rica’s escort was comprised of three destroyers—Defender, Hareward and Hero—along with the cruiser Calcutta. Everyone braced themselves for an attack from the Luftwaffe. Soon after first light, Horrie was on deck with Moody and Gill, and all heads turned to him as he became unsettled. He sat; he stood; he sat again. Then those now-famous ears began to straighten and face beyond the sea to the north. The cry went up that Stukas were on the way. Even before his first growl, gunners were moving fast to set up their Bren guns. Gill lined up with them and countless others. He readied his rifle. This caused Moody to carry Horrie to the sun deck and tie him up, much to his disapproval, as the Stukas began to whine their way towards the vulnerable troop ships. Moody grabbed his own weapon and, lining up next to Gill, began firing at the planes. Soon hundreds of men were crouched on deck, firing machine guns, rifles and revolvers. This was more than a useful back-up for the anti-aircraft guns on the destroyers. The Luftwaffe, which had long ago defeated any British fighters, for once would not have a battle all its own way. The chances of them being shot down increased a few percentage points, a situation that caused German pilots little moments of hesitation in their attacks. They were not suicide bombers and they had not had such concentrated, strong retaliation before in the Battle of Greece. The planes jerked and zigzagged in. This caused bombs to be dumped with a muffled explosion or none at all as they missed the boats and hit the water. One brave or foolhardy pilot dipped low over the Costa Rica, aiming his guns and bombs at the City of London. Some bullets of the deafening volley from the Costa Rica deck hit their mark. The Stuka stuttered in the air, coughed and then nosedived into the sea. A huge roar erupted from the two ships. Soldiers on the City of London acknowledged the hit with waves and cheering to the 1st Battalion gunners and the hundreds of riflemen.
Moody glanced at Horrie, who was barking another warning, and then up to see the ‘gamest man’ on the ship. He was perched in the crow’s nest on the tallest mast. He was waving his arms like a demented conductor as he noticed another wave of Stukas climbing down from the sun. Bullets caused chips to fly off the mast and to fray its rigging.
Moody was in awe of the bravery of the man in the swaying crow’s nest as he seemed to be right in the centre of the cross-fire coming down from the planes and up from the ship’s deck.
When the squadron had departed, a bizarre scene developed in the saloon where one of the gunners, who could not secure a weapon, began belting out a tune on the piano. Other soldiers without guns gathered around and could be heard singing. This prompted Horrie to lift his head and bark and howl, which he always did when the men turned to song. His lyrical accompaniment caused the entire deck of gunners to roar with laugher. But then he stopped mid-song. He sat. His ears began to dance and quiver. Warnings were called along the deck. The gunners and riflemen were soon preoccupied with another Luftwaffe attack. All weapons aimed high. Another Stuka was hit and went twisting and shrieking hard into the sea, where it broke up. The deck of gunners cheered as one. Horrie had watched the incident and he barked as the Mediterranean devoured the broken bits of the plane, and the pilot who was never seen. The dog’s apparent approval brought cheers and clapping from the gunners, whose adrenalin was flowing. Yet the euphoria was short-lived. The German pilots, twice bitten by the battalion’s gunners, now shied away from the Costa Rica and concentrated on the not-so-well protected City of London. But enough defence ripped back at the planes for them to fly high and away to lick wounds and reload with more bombs and bullets. The third, fourth and fifth Stuka attack waves each lost a plane. By midday, the count was five down.
The City of London sent a signal to the Costa Rica congratulating them on the weight of their small-arms fire in support of the gunners, and encouraging them to keep it up as spare ammunition was passed around the deck, ready for the next inevitable encounter. Using the blinding sun as a backdrop better as it reached the peak of its arc, the Luftwaffe returned. One bomb came close and rocked the boat. Some men were knocked off their feet as a tsunami-like wave swamped the deck, brought down rigging and stopped the boat’s engines. The captain was informed that the ship had been holed. The engine room was engulfed in water. The engines were moved off their mounting and the ship ground to a halt. A silence enveloped the ship. The destroyer Defender cruised alongside and enquired about the problem with a loudhailer. Several wags called out responses: ‘Just taking a breather!’; ‘Forgot the batteries!’; ‘Run out of petrol!’; ‘Run out of coal!’ The officer with the hailer called that his boat would start taking troops off the Costa Rica. Moody dashed for the sun deck to rescue Horrie, but the boat was slanting to starboard already. This ship was going belly up from what at first seemed a minor ‘bump’ from a bomb. He reached Horrie, who was struggling to keep his feet but as soon as Moody appeared he wagged his tail as if this was just another odd event on the sea to which he had to adjust. Moody was on edge as men began leaping down on ropes to the destroyer. He looked up, concerned that a new sweep of Stukas would return for a big ‘kill’ now that thousands of soldiers were in danger. Moody held Horrie and looked down to the destroyer, which disappeared out of view with the rise and fall of the water’s swell. There was a seven metre drop. Moody had a small backpack. He would need two hands free to slide down a rope. There was only one thing to do. He would have to throw his little mate overboard. He called down to deckhands on the destroyer that Horrie was coming. He held him up. Two deckhands grinned and gave him the thumbs-up. Moody waited until the boat’s rise was at its lowest and then heaved Horrie, who did something akin to a double somersault with pike right into the two pairs of sturdy hands. Once righted, he looked stunned for a second, then wagged his tail and licked his catchers. Horrie’s first afterthought was to look up for his master, who waved, relieved, before leaping for a rope and landing close to the dog, who went into a licking frenzy as if it was a game. Moody looked around for a good place to tie him up and decided on one of the destroyer’s lifeboats. Moody then hurried back to help other soldiers as they dropped in by rope. There was a never-ending cascade of them hitting the decks and he broke the fall of man after man. But it was a dangerous operation. Moody saw one man drop too high in the sway between the boats. He hit the side of the destroyer and was thrown into the sea. The man did not surface and disappeared under the destroyer. Moments later another soldier tried to make the leap without using a rope when the boats were at their closest. But his timing was out. He hit both boats, struck the water hard and also did not surface. Small boats moved in and around but could not find the two men. With others falling into the water, the rescue flotilla had no choice but to help those they could reach.
Moody noticed a lifeboat slipping down from the Costa Rica and heading for the lifeboat harbouring Horrie. Moody dashed across the deck, untied Horrie and leapt clear a second before the lifeboat cannoned into the one on the destroyer. Moody looked back to see the two boats splintered in half by the impact.
‘A close call, Horrie, mate!’ Moody mumbled. ‘A very close call!’
Seconds later Moody witnessed another incident that would stay with him for life. Bill McMillan, a quartermaster sergeant with the battalion’s C Company, ducked when hit by what he thought was a piece of debris. But it was his cat, the half-Persian Ooboo, who had jumped ship. The cat clung to his shoulders. McMillan grabbed Ooboo and kissed him.
‘You little darling!’ McMillan said, steadying himself in the bobbing little boat. ‘I looked for you everywhere! How many lives is that you have left?!’ He gave the watching Moody the thumbs-up. Ooboo, like Horrie, was known to most in the battalion. Similar to Horrie, he was a mascot and had travelled as such with C Company through Egypt and Greece. But the cat had had a different route into the battalion. Ooboo had survived the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk in 1940 and had been given to the gunners by a British contingent as a gift.
Moody tied Horrie to a pole centre-deck and returned to help others coming in. It was precarious. More men slipped and fell into the water. They had to be fished out of the sea in a frantic yet this time successful bid to get almost everyone on the destroyer and another that manoeuvred to help take passengers. Murchison, Gill and Brooker had stayed on board the doomed and listing Costa Rica with the last group of men, all officers, including the short, rotund captain. The three had combined with Moody to guide and help hundreds of men on the leap from boat to boat. The captain approached the Rebels and others with his most vital papers and some boxes tucked under his arm. He struggled to maintain his feet on his now acutely sloping ship. But he had the presence of mind, and eccentricity, to hand the boxes—containing long Uppmann cigars—to the Rebels and others who had stayed to near the end. All except the captain made the leap to safety. He was left standing on the deck and looked as if he might go down with the ship. The Rebels and a hundred other soldiers and sailors urged him to jump. He appeared torn, but at the last moment grabbed a rope, papers still under one arm, and swung out over the destroyer as its engines started up. Horrie craned his neck to see the captain hovering high over him. Then the skipper dropped, and without losing his feet landed centre-deck a metre or so from the dog. Horrie wagged his behind as if applauding his effort and final decision, and the captain made a special fuss of him as if what he’d just done was all in a day’s work. But everyone knew it was tragic for the captain to lose his serviceable and hardy old tub. He had been with it 17 years and a decade of this was as captain.
All boats headed off for Suda Bay, Crete, the elongated, mountainous Greek island, 272 kilometres long by 32 kilometres wide. The soldiers were thankful that the Luftwaffe, again for reasons only known to it, had held off during the turmoil of a sinking ship. Otherwise there would have been carnage. The escapees had gone just four kilometres when all looked back at the Costa Rica. Its bow went straight up. Then it slid down stern first into the flat sea that had lost its turbulence now that the destroyers were well away. Everyone stared. No one said a word. The captain watched and crossed himself, perhaps wondering if he should have carried on the questionable naval tradition of going down with the ship. Horrie appeared so engrossed in the ship’s dramatic yet graceful demise that Moody took his camera from his backpack and stole a picture of his beloved pet. It did not distract the dog one iota, and Moody wondered what he could be thinking. Horrie’s concentrated expression flitted between confusion and sadness. But Moody, too, was distressed. All his wonderful photographs, diaries, keepsakes and other personal items, such as letters received on the trip, were now deep with the fishes of the Mediterranean. The loss of the diaries hurt him. He had documented the entire trip in them with diligence and in his smooth, stylish handwriting. He vowed to himself there and then he would attempt to re-create the notes, which were so important to him. But the loss of the artistic photographs upset him most. They could not be re-created; not unless he returned to the locations—a thin ray of consolation and hope for the future. Later shots could not match the originals: of Gill and the other Rebels at the Pyramids, in the bazaars of Cairo or in the many quaint towns and villages of Greece; or on Salisbury Plain in England. Some of the gunners had other more prosaic yet more practical thoughts and misgivings about their Vickers machine guns hitting the ocean bottom, too, and being unsalvageable. To men at war, those weapons were precious. Like the mechanics with their trucks, the guns had been lovingly cared for each day with cleaning, oiling and dismembering for inspection, along with their tripods. This valuable equipment, their raison d’être and the lifeblood of the gunners’ battalion, had been lugged up mountains, across rivers and along countless kilometres of dusty, rotten road. With them, these diggers believed they were as near to invincible as soldiers could be. Without them, they were not so sure. The Costa Rica’s sinking left them disgruntled and wondering where they would obtain anything like the weapons they’d had.