truce. And that meant. . . that if it was true that a British officer had some value as a prisoner, it was even more true that a Greek royalist officer was certain to be shot out of hand if caught in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time. In fact, Kyri himself had said as much – and he had replied with cowardly stupidity, claiming guest-rights on Scobiemas Eve – I’m your bloody guest, Kyri! ‘I don’t think so.’
The Greek frowned. ‘Don’t think what, old boy?’
Fred shivered inwardly, aware that he could never explain his shame – that would make it worse. ‘I don’t think I care to take the chance. I think I’d rather shoot it out here – ’ He clawed at his holster with his right hand, only to find that the damn claw was as useless as ever –more useless even, in its very first real emergency
‘ –damn it!’ Damn it to hell! Now he had to reach across with his fumbling left hand! ‘What I mean is ... we can just slow them up, and wait for our chaps to come up behind them, Kyri.’ The bloody thing wouldn’t come out – it was snagged somehow – damn it to hell and back!
‘Too late, old boy,’ the Greek murmured, almost conversationally, raising himself, and then raising and waving his arm with the handkerchief on the end of it. ‘There! Never done that before . . .
but there’s always a first time for everything, they say . . . And I’m told it always worked a treat with the Germans – with their ordinary fellows, anyway . . . eh?’
‘Oh . . . fuck!’ Fred almost wept with frustration as his left hand joined the claw’s mutiny. ‘ Fuck!’
‘Such language!’ Kyriakos tut-tutted at him. ‘We made a pact –
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remember, old boy?’
That was also true, thought Fred as he gagged on other and fouler expletives, in giving up the struggle: only hours – or maybe only minutes – before they had discussed the degeneration of their everyday language under the influence and pressure of army life, in the light of their imminent meeting with Madame Michaelides (who countenanced no such words) and Fred’s eventual return to the bosom of his family (who would certainly be equally shocked); and while his own persuasion had been that it would be no problem
– that some automatic safety-valve would activate – Kyri had not been so confident, and unashamedly more frightened at the prospect than he seemed to be now, at another prospect, as he waved his large white handkerchief.
‘Don’t you forget, now – eh?’ The Greek also waved his finger, admonishing him for all the world as though they were about to meet his mother, instead of more likely God Almighty, Whose intentions they were now supposed to be anticipating. ‘I am Alex, the friend of Spiros – okay?’
It was also, and finally, true . . . what Sergeant Procter always said: that you could like a man and hate him at the same time.
Kyriakos smiled again, turning the knife in the wound.
‘So now we wait!’
‘What for?’ The mixture of unpleasant noises from the other side of the ridge had become increasingly sporadic while they had been arguing. But now it seemed to have died away altogether, so maybe that was a silly question. ‘Not for long, though?’
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‘They’ll flank us.’ Kyri gave the handkerchief a final vigorous wave and then pointed first left, then right. ‘Where those gulleys from the top peter out – “peter out”, is that right?’
‘Yes.’ Five years of English education, followed by another five of military alliance, had rendered the Greek almost perfectly bi-lingual. But, more than that, Fred at last understood how Kyriakos had seen their position through an infantryman’s eye: while their refuge could easily be flanked from those treacherous gulleys, it also had to be eliminated because they in turn had a clear view of the lower slopes and the track below. ‘I understand, Kyri.’
‘Good. Then you watch the left and I will watch the right.’ He paused. ‘And understand this also, old boy: the moment you see anything, you put your hands up – and I mean up – up high, my friend . . . Because we’ll only have that one moment, maybe.
Understood?’
‘Understood.’ He didn’t want to add to the man’s burdens. ‘And then you’re my guide, Alex . . . recommended to me by Spiros the baker.’ He wondered for a moment about Spiros the baker: was he one of Captain Michaelides’ ELAS suspects? Or one of the Captain’s double agents? But then, other than sharing the general British Army distaste for the mutual barbarities of the Greeks’
December bloodbath, he had never really attempted to understand their politics: the distinction between Captain Kyriakos Michaelides, of the Royal Hellenic Army, and Kyriakos Michaelides, the son of Father’s old friend, was not one he had even thought of seriously until now. ‘But I don’t speak halfways decent Greek’s, remember – okay?’
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‘Don’t worry about that.’ Kyri threw the words over his shoulder, forcing him to concentrate on his own gulley. ‘I’ll do the talking.
Just you be an outraged British ally to start with, old boy — and be angry with me for getting you into trouble. And – ’ He stopped suddenly.
‘And what?’ He fought the urge to turn towards the sudden silence.
‘Have you spotted something?’
‘And . . . nod . . . nod and smile when I mention Spiros – okay?’
The Greek spoke with unnatural slowness. ‘Ye-ess . . . I think maybe I have . . . so get ready!’
Fred still couldn’t see anything. But the muscles all the way down his arms wanted to get his hands up even before his brain transmitted its own instructions. ‘Nothing this side –’
‘YOU THERE! STAND UP!’
The shout came from his side, out of nowhere –
‘ Get up!’ Kyriakos snarled at him from behind.
Fred and his arms shot up simultaneously, his boots digging into the scree beneath them so urgently that he almost over-balanced; and it was only when he’d rebalanced himself that the reason for his failure to react instantly came to him –
“DON’T SHOOT!‘ He hadn’t imagined in advance how he was supposed to obey an order given in a foreign language. But there was suddenly no problem about how to reply to an order in the plainest King’s English. ’ BRITISH! ‘
Kyri shouted something, also. But Fred was too busy staring at the figure which had risen out of the dead ground of the gulley no dummy4
more than thirty yards away from him.
‘KEEP ’EM UP! DON’T YOU DARE MOVE A FUCKING INCH!‘
Fred was suddenly impaled on the prongs of disbelief and relief, any last doubts about the identity of his captor dissolved by that beloved obscenity, which sounded sweeter in his ear than all the music of heaven – which could never be foul and harsh again, it was so beautiful.
The welcome figure advanced cautiously towards him, cradling a gangster’s Thompson machine-pistol in its hands, until it had halved the distance between them.
‘KEEP ’EM UP!‘
Relief had started to lower his arms. But as they instantly went up again, disbelief still clogged his tongue.
‘Say something, old boy!’ Kyri no longer snarled, but his voice was nonetheless urgent. ‘ Say something!’
‘Yes.’ As Fred’s tongue unclogged he felt himself leap from cowardly gratitude to outraged dignity with one five-league stride.
‘What the hell are you up to – ’ The man was so close now that he could see the chevrons on his arm ‘ – sergeant?’