SBS, page 17
‘Yes. I am like you. I am a realist. I believe in God and I believe in the devil, but most of all I believe in life and I do whatever I can to keep it. But even I. Even Grigori, I feel something here. There is something here.’ He laughed. ‘Come on please, sirs. Now we need to get on. Before the day comes.’
They moved faster now, with their goal in sight. And as they neared it, the path they trod became more regular and less overgrown. Clearly, at some point and quite probably over hundreds of years, it had been tended very carefully.
They reached the church and instantly Hunter realised that they were not in fact nearly as exposed as he had at first thought and saw how the church fitted into the surrounding landscape. There, perhaps half a mile away below it lay the open sea and beside it the flickering morning lights of Heraklion and spread out beside the town, to the north-east, the great open space and military dwellings that was the aerodrome. Their target for the mission. There were guards posted all around the airfield. Leigh Fermor’s intelligence estimated perhaps three hundred men, housed in a number of old accommodation blocks. The layout had not been changed since the British had been there. Which was an added bonus as Hunter himself had been billeted there with the Black Watch before the Battle of Crete. He remembered it well.
But the main garrison was housed in the old Greek barracks which lay a mile directly to the west. The same buildings his own old mob had lived in. That German garrison now apparently stood at around three thousand men. In a way they were lucky. Until recently there had been sixty thousand Germans on Crete, three infantry regiments, an artillery regiment, a reconnaissance regiment and a tank destroyer regiment. But after Rommel’s drive on Cairo had stalled, the garrison had been plundered for reinforcements. Two of the three infantry regiments had been sent to North Africa, along with the tank destroyers, leaving just one regiment of infantry and a fraction of the original artillery. In fact, the German garrison of the island had never been so weak. Leigh Fermor and Vickery were agreed on around fifteen to twenty thousand men. But it was the three thousand at Heraklion that concerned Hunter and more specifically those three hundred of the airfield garrison.
*
Hunter walked up to the door of the church, which lay open and, pushing against it gently, walked inside. At first it was hard to see in the dim light and as it was not quite yet dawn. But gradually his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. The walls as he entered were whitewashed and, ensuring that its light would not be seen from outside, he struck a match. The interior appeared to be empty, save for a few simple wooden chairs, some of which lay on their side on the white stone floor.
Down beside the chancel and the plain altar stone, which was without the cloth that would in peacetime have been draped over it, the little church was decorated with frescoes. Well, at some point it had been although few seemed to have survived intact now. Those that had managed to escape the ruination of time and vandalism were simply stunning.
Hunter dumped his kit close to the door and looked around, scarcely believing his eyes. On one wall of the knave was a decorative pattern of lozenge shapes and diamonds in several different colours. The fresco in the dome of the chancel had clearly at one time been astonishing. All that was left now though was a glimpse of Christ in splendour above the saints. As he was looking at it his match went out. But outside the day was beginning to dawn and light had begun to filter through the three small windows at the top, in the dome. Illuminating exactly the spot at which he was looking.
Below the dome the real window at the end of the church – behind the altar stone – had been incorporated into a decorative scheme of false, painted windows to create an illusion. It was in every way, other-worldly. He turned to Grigori who had followed him into the church and was now standing close behind him. ‘Fabulous.’
‘You think so, sir? I too.’
‘I mean it. This place is fabulous.’
Hunter looked around again and began to examine the frescoes. His father had known so much about archaeology but nothing about art and Hunter had tried to educate himself. In London he had always visited the public galleries when he could. The National Gallery and the British Museum had both become almost second homes to him when he had been working in Soho. But never had he seen anything quite so simple – at once so primitive and yet as sophisticated as these frescoes.
Woods and two of the others, Martin and Duffy, had also followed him inside now and stood staring. Woods ruminated, with his hand rubbing his bearded chin. They weren’t really to his taste. He had been brought up surrounded by painted images of horse racing and partridge shooting, his father’s twin passions. That was real art. This seemed somehow primitive, almost ugly and with a strange power about them that shook his soul in a most unpleasant way. Eventually, he delivered his judgement: ‘They’re good, I suppose. If you like that sort of thing. Prefer Stubbs and Herring myself. Just so damned good with horses. Can’t really see what these are really meant to be here.’
Martin was open-mouthed. ‘What a place. Blimey. Who’d have thought? Is this our gaff, sir?’
‘Yes, Martin. This is our gaff. For one night only, I hope.’
There was certainly a sense of calm and serenity about the little chapel.
Grigori showed them around, as if he was the proud owner. He pointed to the altar stone, which had been carved from the rock on which the chapel stood and might have been older than the building itself.
‘Here, look. This is where the altar stood and here…’ He took them to the left. ‘Here is a little chapel. This is most safe place on the whole of the island, sirs.’
There was a tiny doorway, just over two feet high, cut into the stone, stopped with a heavy oak door. It looked like a store cupboard. The sort of place where you might keep the altar silver. Woods stared at it. ‘In there? In that cupboard? Are you serious?’
Grigori smiled, shook his head and scratched at his beard, knowingly. ‘Sometimes, Kapitan, things are not what they seem. Not cupboard. I tell you, Kapitan. No, look. I show you.’
He bent down and undid the iron lock and opened the door. Then kneeling on the floor he began to crawl in. To their surprise, even his huge frame fitted quite easily through the doorway and within seconds, the big Greek had completely disappeared from sight. They heard him calling, ‘Come. Come in. Come and see.’
Woods went first, uncertain as to whether he would fit. But soon, he too was gone. Hunter followed them. Through the tiny door was a short tunnel. The effect was slightly claustrophobic for a few moments, but then very quickly it was at an end and he emerged into a room, some six feet high, which extended to his left for what looked to be around twenty feet or more. It was dimly lit from small vents in the roof, which also provided a source of constant fresh air. Grigori lit a match and they saw that here too the walls had been decorated with frescoes. But here they were in black and white on the whitewashed rough-hewn walls. They depicted pastoral scenes: farming, grape and olive picking and men and women drinking. Hunter had no idea how old they were, but he supposed that they must date back to well before the Renaissance.
For a moment both officers were speechless. Woods spoke first: ‘Good Lord. These are better, I’ll say. I would never have guessed.’
Grigori smiled. ‘They’re good. No?’
‘Good, yes. Very, very good. This is perfect. You’re right. It must be the safest place on the island. Well done, Grigori.’
Hunter spoke: ‘What do you suppose it was? Do you think it was always secret?’
Grigori nodded and led them down the room towards the end where, carved into the very rock of the building, there stood a tiny stone font. ‘Look. This is what for. For baptism. Secret baptisms. Long time ago. It was difficult times here and this place was very, very secret.’
Hunter could only imagine what sort of people might have used the little church. A secret Christian sect, hiding from who or what? From the Ottomans in the 1820s? Or long before that from the old religion of the pagan Gods? Or more likely from the Greek Orthodox faith. Or Orthodox Christians hiding from the conquering Venetian clergy. East versus West. One form of Christianity murderously intent on destroying another. He imagined them here, all those centuries ago. Terrified men, women and children, crammed in, hiding in this tiny space. In constant fear of discovery and death. But always resolute in their faith. Determined to survive. It was not perhaps so different he thought, from today. A people, oppressed and terrorised. Unable to live in freedom, yet equally determined to survive and as they had done so many times before, to throw off the oppressor.
He looked at Grigori in the flickering matchlight. ‘Very brave people were here, Grigori.’
‘Yes, sir. Very brave people. Very, very brave.’
They crawled out one by one from the little room and Woods went to look at the outside of the church. The men were all inside the church now and, in ones and twos, Hunter took them to the little door and explained the room before taking them inside.
Straightening up, after crawling through, Duffy could hardly believe it. ‘I feel like Alice in Wonderland, sir. But no one’s given me a potion. I just shrunk. How we got through that door, I don’t know. It’s magic, this place, sir. Pure bloody magic.’
They all managed to get through the door, even White, who almost didn’t make it but scraped his huge shoulders against the stone roof of the entrance. Hunter was relieved though. If the worst came to the worst they could all fit into the secret chamber. He hoped, however, that it wouldn’t have to come to that.
Woods, walking round the exterior of the building, had worked out why the little cell could not be seen from the outside. It reminded him of something he had seen when, as a boy, his family had toured the Loire region of his mother’s native France, visiting friends and some of his mother’s family who owned a number of chateaux. He enthused, ‘It’s rather clever actually. The room is designed as a sort of sleeve to the rest of the church. It runs down one of the walls, looking exactly like a solid piece of rock. Because the air and light holes are in the roof you can’t see them from the ground. It’s exactly mimicked by another sleeve on the other side. But that one really is solid rock. It’s brilliant. Who would have thought that a simple rural people could ever have designed something so very clever?’
Hunter looked at him. Who indeed would ever have thought that a simple rural people could have created something so clever? That same simple rural people who had given the world so much, from medicine to philosophy, a legal system to mathematics and of course democracy. That precious democracy, which had been ripped away in so many countries across civilised Europe, in the name of Fascism. This was where it had all begun. Of course it was. And it dawned on him that this, after all, was why he was here. He was defending civilisation. They all were.
But, he thought, with a smile, wasn’t it also ironic that as well as those things that made us civilised, the ancient Greeks had given us the clue to inventing so many means of bloody mass destruction. From the missile catapult to some of the most unpleasant weapons today, in their own armoury and that of the enemy, from the hand grenade to the ghastly liquid fire of the flamethrower.
*
Although for none of them it held the boyhood connections that it did for Woods, or the ancient associations of Hunter’s understanding, the men seemed happy enough with their new billet. Apart from anything else, most of them could now see just how hard it would be for the Germans to find them. Only Phelps had shown any sign of concern. When he had been in the hidden chapel, Hunter had watched him closely. He had seemed fine at first, but gradually Hunter could see him starting to panic. He saw the small beads of sweat break on his forehead and saw his eyes take on that same strange stare that he had noticed on the boat. It did not surprise him that Phelps should have quickly made an exit line for the little door and have been the first to get out. It was clear that within the little room’s confined space, he alone had not just felt unsafe, but actually trapped.
Hunter began to worry. What if Phelps’s unbalanced state should jeopardise the mission? For a moment he toyed with the idea of ordering him to return to the village, but quickly, he thought better of it. The man was surely merely nervous. They all were. Phelps just showed it more evidently than the rest of them.
Putting unwelcoming imaginings from his mind, Hunter told himself that Phelps’s nerves were nothing to be seriously concerned with and set about the more immediate business of making a plan for a defensive perimeter.
10
The dawn was just starting to come up, painting the skies above Crete with orange, amber and blue, as they settled in around the little church. Knowing that they would have to rest up here all day, Hunter issued orders to make the place as defensible as possible and his men somewhat less visible. The explosives he would place in the inner chapel and it would be best for Woods and White to remain in there as well, while the rest of them were away on the operation.
He made a quick reconnaissance trip around the building, inside and out, spotting the danger points and areas of best defence.
It was clear that if the enemy realised they were based here and a battle ensued then the building would not withstand a hit from a tank shell or artillery. However, with its thick stone walls, it would be a good place to defend against small arms fire. There were three arched windows in the chancel, in each of which he could place a man, along with a wall outside that would give cover to a machine-gun team. If they were to be trapped here it would be vital to have a few men away from the church to counter-attack and he drew up a plan in his mind that when they arrived back from the operation, if the enemy were in close pursuit, he would detail White and Fletcher, and he presumed Woods, to get out of the building and get themselves into good cover in one of the nearby olive groves and wait for their time before rushing any German attackers, with machine guns and grenades.
He wandered over to Woods and told him his plans, fully expecting a quick rebuff. But he was taken by surprise, as Woods nodded. ‘Seems like a sound idea, Hunter. But if we are rumbled, then personally I think we should run for the boat rather than making a stand. This is no time for heroics.’
‘I agree in a way. But just wanted to make sure that if we were cornered, I mean really and truly cut off, then we had a plan.’
‘Well, I’m with you but I really don’t think we’ll need that sort of a plan, Jim. I don’t intend to hang around here, if I can help it. You know what happened last time.’
Hunter had wondered how long it would take Woods to mention their last mission. To use it as some sort of justification. Well here it was. Hunter said nothing, but left Woods and wandered over to where Phelps was staring out of one of the windows across to the sea, as the rising sun began to throw out its light across the surface, changing the night’s deep blue to the brilliant azure of day.
‘Alright, Phelps?’
‘Fine, sir. Never better.’
‘You seemed to be a little tense when we were in the chapel. Were you? Tense, I mean?’
‘No, sir. Not really. Just not that keen on small spaces. It’s nothing. Won’t happen again, sir.’
‘You know, if you’re worried about anything, Phelps, anything at all, you can talk to me. That’s what I’m here for.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’ll be sure to remember that. If I need to.’
Hunter doubted it.
*
They spent the final day before the operation tucked into their new base and taking turns to go on watch. For most of the day the men were either lost in thought or busying themselves with last-minute adjustments to their kit. In some cases, Hunter knew these were utterly unnecessary, and were only made to deflect the mind from brooding too much on coming events. Some of the men chose to read instead, losing their minds in some other world. Grigori had brought with him a small piece of wood, which he was whittling into a sculpture of a man – a goatherd – and he busied himself with this, working carefully with the same razor-sharp knife that he used to cut his food and pick his teeth.
Having helped each man check his weapon and webbing, as morning turned into the sleepy warmth of early afternoon Hunter pulled a tattered book from his bag and opened it at random. Rouse’s Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece had been his constant companion for the last ten years, offering him escape and advice, and it did not fail him now. It fell open at the page in which Theseus offers to kill the Minotaur on Crete, which was, thought Hunter, a remarkable coincidence. He was even more taken aback when, looking at the foot of the page he read:
‘...Theseus … like a true leader of men would never command one of his subjects to do anything which he was not ready to do himself.’
So here he was, a modern-day Theseus, about to enter the Minotaur’s lair on Crete. But where was his Ariadne and where was the ball of thread with which he was to get himself and his men out of the enemy maze? Turning the page and looking for an answer, his eye fell on another passage:
‘...here was something new, which they did not understand; but it made them hope once more, for hope is always with us’
It was true. However well they prepared and however good their intelligence, in the end, all that they really had was hope.
*
As Grigori had predicted, throughout the day, not a single German patrol came close to them. At around eleven they heard the sound of engines and Martin spotted a column of German half-tracked troop carriers about five miles away, on the road that ran close to the coast, from Heraklion to Chersonios. Binoculars revealed them to be crammed with infantry. But the vehicles were soon obscured in the cloud of dust put up by their tracks and they vanished as quickly as they had appeared, clearly intent on their purpose, whatever it might have been.
Then, a little later in the day, in the middle of the afternoon, Fletcher – whose turn it was on watch – gave a low whistle, like a bird, three times. Hearing the signal, Hunter moved out of the church and ran, as fast as he was able, half doubled up, across to the lookout position in the long grass to the north. Fletcher pointed towards an olive grove further down the hill, in the direction of Knossos. At first Hunter saw nothing, and then it came into view. Two German motorcyclists were standing together beside their motorbikes, chatting to each other and smoking.
