The Officer and the Spy, page 40
Eleni let her attention settle on four-year-old Brigit.
Of them all, she resembled Otto, and her great-grandmother, the most. She had their brown hair, their slanted green eyes; skin that turned to bronze the instant the sun touched it.
That grin.
It was all over her delighted little face as Rafe raised her up, high above him, turning her around and around.
‘Daddy, do it now,’ she squealed, ‘throw me now.’
‘Not until you say it in Greek,’ he said, in Greek.
So she said it in Greek.
And, in the same moment that Josh upended Georgie from her lilo, Rafe launched her through the air.
As she flew, her eyes, full of the thrill, locked on Eleni’s.
Do you think he knows?
Eleni thought, perhaps he did.
Brigit splashed joyously down, limbs flailing, into the clear sea, and Eleni believed he must.
Author’s Note
It has been an incredibly moving experience, writing The Officer and The Spy, which was inspired, in no small part, by the experiences and stories of my own family. My grandmother, Maria, was in Athens throughout the Nazi occupation. She, along, with my great-aunt Noola, and great-uncle Yorgos, survived it, whilst my great-grandparents, and other great-aunts, tragically, did not. My grandmother met my English grandfather at the liberation, and left with him for England before the start of the civil war. She couldn’t afford to return to Greece until more than a decade later, when she took my dad and his siblings there by train: a trip my dad still talks about with huge emotion.
I have been lucky enough to grow up spending every summer of my life in Greece, and now take my own family there every year. Throughout my childhood, I was told stories of my relatives’ experiences in the war, many sad, some happy: of rabbits named after Nazi generals; of German soldiers that were too young, and very hungry; of my dad’s oldest friend, who is only alive today because, when his own father was lined up to be shot in a Nazi reprisal, he somehow found the strength to jump the six-foot wall behind him, and run. One of my own earliest memories is sitting on my uncle Yorgos’s lap, by the sea, and him leaning down, resting his cheek against mine, and pointing up at the sky, telling me to look, ‘Not a cloud there.’ I never met my grandmother, but Yorgos, and my aunty Noola, were like grandparents to me, and a story set in their home, that I think of in so many ways as my own, has long been growing in me. I hope so much that I have done it justice. I hope that they, and my grandmother, would have approved.
The Officer and The Spy, whilst entirely a work of fiction, is nonetheless rooted in real-world events, and there are a number of books that I found invaluable in my research: Crete, The Battle and the Resistance, by Antony Beevor, is an excellent study, examining the battle from every side; The Cretan Runner, by George Psychoundakis, is a vividly written memoir which brings to life what it meant to be a local member of the Cretan Resistance; Ill Met by Moonlight, by W. Stanley Moss, and Abducting a General: the Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete by Patrick Leigh Fermor, are both gripping memoirs of British SOE operatives active on the island; finally, the Second in Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy, Officers and Gentlemen, provides an unputdownable account of the battle from Waugh, who experienced it first-hand.
I have tried to provide as faithful an account as possible of the battle for, and defeat of, Crete, in 1941, but there is no one simple answer to why the island fell. Given the Nazi invading force was so much weaker, numerically, to those waiting to fight them, it is perhaps no surprise that there has been such heated debate, ever since, into the reasons behind the island’s defeat. Undoubtedly, Freyberg’s belief that the Nazis would attack by sea as well as air was crucial, resulting, as it did, in the fall of Maleme airbase, but there were other factors involved: poor communications; narrow, blocked roads; the sensitivity of the most secret wireless intercepts, which the Allied Forces couldn’t risk the Nazi commanders guessing they’d decoded. What is incontrovertible is that, in May 1941, Crete did fall, and massacres swiftly followed, inflicted on Cretans by way of punishment for their defence of their home. Whilst there were German soldiers, like Otto, who protested against the travesty of these reprisals – the Parachute Division’s Chief of Staff was, as mentioned in the novel, one such man – plenty didn’t, and, by the occupation’s end, thousands of men, women and children had been murdered. Scores of villages had been burned to the ground.
The occupation lasted for four years, with the last Nazi forces not leaving Crete until 1945, several months after the liberation of Athens. The reprisals were, tragically, far from being the only atrocity. Many Jewish Cretans, like Eleni’s neighbours, were arrested, and murdered in the executions following the 1942 attacks on Nazi airbases. Even more remained in prison until May 1944, when, after further island-wide arrests, they were forced onto a ship bound, horrifically, for the death camps of Europe – a ship that was mistaken as a military vessel by British naval forces and, devastatingly, sunk, with almost everyone on board drowned. Only a few escaped, to remain hidden with Greek families until the end of the war.
On the island, countless cruelties were inflicted, but so too did a fierce resistance flourish, made up of both Allied and local operatives. It was whilst I was researching their incredible work that I came across a small but unforgettable reference made by Antony Beevor to the bravery of local Cretan women, employed as translators and secretaries by the Germans, who risked their lives to feed the resistance vital information. I knew immediately that I wanted to explore a woman fulfilling such role in this novel – neither Greek, nor British, but a mix, like my own family is a mix, of the two.
The first British SOE agents returned to Crete within months of the surrender, initially to help evacuate the stranded Allied soldiers, but thereafter also to support resistance efforts. Whilst there were, undeniably, Cretans who acted as informers, such collaborators were the exception; by far and away the majority of Cretans took huge risks to resist. As one SOE operative, Ralph Stockbridge, is quoted as saying in Beevor’s book, ‘Everything depended throughout on their magnificent loyalty. Without their help as guides, informants, suppliers of food and so on, not a single one of us would have lasted twenty-four hours.’
Almost all the characters in this novel are fictional, but there are a handful of references to individuals alive at the time. I have already mentioned the German parachute division’s chief of staff, and, in addition, all the generals I refer to are historical figures. On the British side, John Pendlebury was indeed based in Heraklion before the invasion, tasked with building the support of Cretan kapitans, and, according to contemporary accounts, intended to remain on the island to continue fighting, if it fell. Tragically, he was killed during the invasion, and is now buried in the Allied cemetery at Souda Bay. Chania’s mayor, Nikolas Skoulas, such an ally to Eleni, was highly active in the resistance and worked, throughout the occupation, with members of the SOE to form a pan-island movement. Finally, I mention, briefly, SOE agents Xan Fielding and Patrick Leigh Fermor, and also Cretans, Andreas Polentas and Apostolos Evangelou, all of whom were heavily involved in the resistance too.
At the end of the war, those Nazi generals and senior officers who’d led the occupation were tried, and punished. For years, the German soldiers who’d fallen – so many, on the first day of the invasion, so many of them conscripted – lay scattered across the island. But, with the passage of time, it was decided that they, as well as their Allied counterparts, should be moved to a single resting place. The cemetery at Souda was built for the Allied soldiers, and the cemetery at Maleme for the Germans. It is hard to imagine what must have gone into the task of exhuming and moving the fallen men; when I read that the burial of the Germans was undertaken not only by their surviving comrades, but also Cretans, including members of the resistance, it moved me to tears.
In the summer of 2021, I took my children to Maleme cemetery, where, in the Cretan sunshine – surrounded by many others, of all nationalities – we read the headstones of those who had died. All around us, we heard the same murmured words. So young. We’ve visited, of course, the cemetery at Souda as well, and heard the same refrain repeated again, and again there.
In May of 2021, ceremonies were held around the world to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Battle of Crete, attended by the last surviving veterans, all remembering, all honouring. Never has it felt more important than now to remember that war, that awful war, in which so much was lost, and taken, and given, and from which the perpetual echoes are still being felt, generations on.
Acknowledgements
I want to say a huge thank you to everyone that has given their time to read The Officer and The Spy. It is my sixth novel, which feels almost impossible to believe, and I never forget what a privilege it is to share my stories with others. Nothing makes my day like hearing from a reader – it really can lift me from the deepest of plot holes – and I’m so very grateful for all the support I’ve received.
This novel is one I’ve long been waiting to write, and I couldn’t have done it without the belief and encouragement of my brilliant agent, Becky Ritchie, and equally fantastic editor, Manpreet Grewal. I’m a firm believer that a novel is made in the editing, and it’s such a joy to work with Manpreet, who always manages to know just where I want to go with my stories, and how to help me get there. Thank you to Deborah Schneider, and to Alexandra McNicoll, Prema Raj, and Tabatha Legett at AM Heath, for all their work in finding my books international homes. And thank you to Melanie Hayes, Lily Capewell, Sarah Lundy, Janet Aspey, Donna Hillyer, and everyone at HQ – I am so lucky to be working with such an inspired, talented team.
I also want to thank all the writers, bloggers and bookstagrammers who are so generous with their time, reading and reviewing, and who keep my TBR pile teetering with their fantastic recommendations. I cannot say thank you enough to wonderful friends, Iona Grey, Sarra Manning, Cesca Major, Claire McGlasson, Kate Riordan, Lucy Foley, and Katherine Webb, nor to Dinah Jefferies, Hazel Gaynor, Gill Paul, Eve Chase, Tracy Rees, Liz Trenow, and Heather Webb – it would be a lot tougher, and a lot less fun, without you all.
Thank you to my husband, Matt, and to our children, Molly, Jonah and Raffy, for always being by my side. Thank you to my mum, for everything, and to my dad, for everything too – and, in this case, most of all for telling me so many wonderful stories of my grandmother. Thank you to all my family in Greece, especially my cousin Nestos, for being on the end of the phone and answering all my questions. Thank you too, to Philippa Viglakis, for her hospitality and sharing so much local Cretan knowledge.
Finally, thank you to my grandmother, Maria, my great-aunt Noola, and my great-uncle Yorgos. I can’t say this to them in person, but without the love they each left behind, I would never have written this book.
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower
22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor
Toronto, ON, M5H 4E3, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
India
HarperCollins India
A 75, Sector 57
Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201 301, India
http://www.harpercollins.co.in
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com
Dublin
HarperCollinsPublishers
Macken House, 39/40 Mayor Street Upper
Dublin 1
D01 C9W8 Ireland
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
Jenny Ashcroft, The Officer and the Spy
