9 groups wouldn’t give free rein to. So he complained. He cabled the Communist newspaper Rizospástis, which wrote it up on the editorial page, and Avramídis was furious. He was an officer of democratic persuasions. Plastíras was prime minister at the time. And he ordered the replacement of our battalion. We had to go down to Lárissa. Then various other units closed in on Aris. Did his own men execute him or did he kill himself, no one knows. The whole story is still murky. The fact remains that he expected the Office of the Prefecture to okay his leaving for Yugoslavia. So we went south to Lárissa. We spent all the time until the fall of 1946 in Lárissa and in Vólos. Then came the plebiscite.10 And later on, when the rebellion started and the first skirmishes had occurred at Litóchoro and Pontokerasiá,11 our battalion had already been disbanded. The National Guard was disbanded, units of regulars were now being formed, and conscripts were being drafted. Hard times were beginning and all that came with them. The courts-martial and all that. Yiánnis was tried and convicted in Trípolis. I didn’t hear about his execution until later. His uncle Mítsos Kapetanéas, his mother’s brother, had tried to get him to reconsider. There was still the chance to renounce his former allegiance at the time. But Yiánnis was hardheaded. He was the kind of man who would never compromise. And his sacrifice was a waste. A lively character, and kind too. He could even have proved useful. Though he did us great harm, me and my brother. Aside from burning down our home, he had denounced us and cursed us as traitors and criminals. When, in fact, he could have become one of us. But the spirit of dissention had prevailed. I could see that there was a deliberate priming of the ground from that time on. Just after I got back from the Albanian front. At any rate, I stayed in Kastrí until 1943. The summer of ’43, when we had gotten our core group together. When Márkos Ioannítzis arrived. Then things started going wrong. Márkos was extremely naive when it came to conspiracies. Although he knew full well that the opposite side wanted to monopolize everything. One evening we got together at Réppas’s house, and he was going on and on. Talking openly. I remember Harís Lenghéris getting all tearful. Or pretending to. He took me aside. Please, teach me to become a fighter. As the oldest of a twelve-member family he’d never been to boot camp. Haroúlis12 Lenghéris, the notorious Communist. I’m trying to say that Márkos didn’t cover his back. He had come equipped with military maps, he had become a member of the Peloponnese Resistance network. He had men in many different places. On his last night, before leaving for the hills of Mount Parnon, we met just below the square. At Ayía Paraskeví. At the chapel. At night. We were all there, me, my first cousin Márkos Mávros, Chrístos Haloúlos, Kóstas Kyreléis, the whole group. About ten of us. And he gave us our final instructions. He assigned the Laconía sector to me. I was to meet a certain justice of the peace in Gýthio. That was the first leg, the other would be the Sykiá airfield, in Moláous. There was someone at the airfield whose name I don’t remember. Mántis, I think. But a disabled vet, at any rate. From these two I would gather information, among other things. He tells me, You’ll get started as soon as I come back from Mount Parnon. That’s when you’ll contact them. He never came back. He had gone to Mount Parnon to meet the British. To convince them to reinforce him too. And he ran into Látsis and someone else. Communists he knew. And they’re the ones who killed him. In the meantime he had connected our local cell with RO, the Radical Organization of Athens. Twice I had carried information memos to Athens. The memos were assembled by officers in Trípolis. I dropped these off at a side street off Agámon Square. Chrístos Frángos, from Kastrí, had a pastry shop there. I think he was a waiter. RO was trying to get the British to make supply drops in the area around Mount Parnon. And to create a cell operating a wireless radio. So that we could make use of Stámos Triantafýllis’s forces. And Kontalónis’s too. Kontalónis I knew from my school days in Trípolis. He was a second lieutenant, a Cadet Academy graduate. He had formed a group but fell into the clutches of the Communists. Of Leventákis and the others. He had started out as a royalist. We were hoping he would work with us. But of course there was nothing he could do then. He was already in the stranglehold of the Leventákis-Prekezés group. Later on he changed sides. They persuaded him to attack a small German unit. They were driving to Aráhova to get potatoes. To Aráhova in Laconía. And he attacked them. They were an easy target. There were either three or four Germans, they’d left their weapons in the truck. But that was his mission, to attack. The Germans burned down the village. That’s what drove the villagers of Aráhova up to the mountains. Our group, through the RO liaison, was expecting to be supplied by sea. I went to reconnoiter a submarine approach. Márkos had given me a map of the region. I set out from Kastrí. But we were under close surveillance. By Magoúlis and some others. I took Ilías Darláras as my muleteer. His house was below ours. He was Galioúris’s brother-in-law. He took me at night as far as Meligoú and left me there. I went down to Astros. I met Yiórgos Stratigópoulos there, a law student. He was from Ayios Andréas. His mother was from Kastrí. He was a leftist, but he worked with us. Exceptional fellow. I found him at Astros. We went to Ayios Andréas together. I did my reconnaissance. Coordinates and all. I noted everything on the map, so we could ask to be supplied from the Middle East Command. We went back to Astros. I delegated Níkos Farmakoulídas to set up the submarine reception. And since my being there seemed strange, I let it be known, confidentially, that Níkos was in the process of arranging a marriage for me. That was soon to take place. I went back to Kastrí on a truck, a gasogene truck. Yiórghis Réppas was driving it. There were no other means of transportation then. I found it by chance. It was summer. It must have been June. Late June. Because we had picked apricots as we drove through the fields. And they weren’t ripe yet. We arrived at Kastrí, I sent my report to Athens. With the point where the submarine could approach and its coordinates. But all of this, the drops and everything, was controlled from Cairo. Paradrops were made to groups favored by the British. And they wouldn’t reinforce leaderless or isolated groups. They made drops to Zérvas,13 and also to ELAS. The reason given for canceling the shipment to us of supplies, mainly munitions, was that the sub’s point of approach was not clearly designated. The response soon came. The coordinates were not precise enough, they had to be accompanied by a particular landmark, a special feature of the location. Then it occurred to me that there was a windmill there. I instantly put together a second memo. Just beyond the rocky shore there is a sandy beach, its coordinates being such and such, and at a distance of two hundred meters a very visible windmill stands alone. No doubt about it, a submarine could reach that spot, if it wanted to. But of course all this was just an excuse. In the meantime, Kóstas Kyreléis had left Kastrí and gone up to Mount Taygetus. And I’m now alone as a local overseer. Yiannakópoulos14 was there at Mount Taygetus. Katsaréas was there. Vrettákos was there. And also Stámos Triantafýllis. ELAS wouldn’t let him operate on Mount Parnon. All this in 1943, in the summer. And that was when the Yiannakópoulos pact with the Communists was signed. The Brits had intervened. Tavernarákis was up there too, as liaison with the SMA.