5 Right about then. Our houses had been burned down earlier. Probably in May. The first seven of them. But I’m talking about the big fire now. On the following day the Braílas men went there, a small group. They walked into the village, the walls were standing, still smoldering. They were furious. There was no doubt that atrocities had been committed. At any rate, we finally went up to Kastrí. And we went to Astros. In trucks. And three or four cars. There weren’t many of us. We spent one day in Astros. We went to Manolákos’s store. A large storehouse. The Manolákos brothers, Yiórghis and Grigóris. They were Dr. Konstantínos’s brothers-in-law. They had a problem with one of the brothers’ children. He had gotten mixed up with the rebel movement. They brought us wine, hard goat cheese, and bread. And we drank. We ate and we drank. Then we left Astros. We didn’t stay in Astros, it was a dangerous place. Wide open on all sides. We went up to Xerokámpi, to somewhere near Tarmíri. We posted sentries and spent the night there. There were no Germans with us. There was a detail of theirs in Kastrí. Arrived there before we did. Because I remember that on our way through I went to their doctor. My knee was swollen, I’d hurt it somewhere. He didn’t do anything to me, and of course I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He put some iodine on it, dabbed it with iodine. And then we moved on. We knew that there were rebels in Meligoú. Militia units but commanders too. Velissáris, Kléarhos. So the leadership decided to surround Meligoú. We stopped about one kilometer outside the village and sent two teams to encircle it. To block the village exits. And before they even got there, only five minutes after they started, Mihális Galaxýdis climbs into his truck with about ten other men, and going full speed, machine guns in hand and horns at full blast, he rides into Meligoú. He went in and he captured it. Of course no one stayed there to wait for us. They had all taken off. We only found a young girl. She was lighting the oil candles6 in the church, or pretending to. She wore a kerchief on her head, and a black skirt, but I recognized her. She saw that I’d seen her. She didn’t say anything. I didn’t either. The girl was innocent. Kléarhos’s sister. She was arrested later on. They brought her down here. Antonía, she’s Fánis Grigorákis’s wife at present. But that’s what was happening then. All sorts of trigger-happy characters would do whatever came into their heads. Mihális Galaxýdis was one of them. That’s how he killed Tsígris. Tsígris was a regular army colonel. Whom the Communists had taken to better staff their forces. Or perhaps as a front. A Greek Army colonel. He was arrested, or rather the poor man surrendered. To us. He found a face-saving solution, he surrendered. It’s well known that this is done. You get yourself arrested so you don’t appear to have surrendered. Tsígris. Plytás, and all the officers from Náfplion. The Náfplion garrison. Instead of ending up in their hands, the arms ended up with the Communists. Due to airdrops by the British on Mount Taygetus, and especially the Zíreia Mountains. Airdrops of arms and gold sovereigns. And of course they dropped boots too. Everything was in their hands. So what could Yiannakópoulos and the rest do? They had nothing. And above all no moral support. What could they do? There were lots of officers. Tsígris, Lyritzís. Yes. And my brother Kóstas interrogated Tsígris. On Papadóngonas’s orders. So he could verify certain things. That was Kóstas’s job, interrogations. On that same day a Battalions unit set out for Eleohóri-Ayiórghis. It was a routine sortie. Nothing but saber rattling. Now who could they possibly be chasing down there? Possibly, also, to bring back food. There was a shortage of food. Kyriákos Galaxýdis was in that unit too. A former gendarme. A patrol sergeant I think. And he was about to beat this woman, but he didn’t beat her, he pushed her with his rifle, an Italian carbine. Vanghélis Farazís’s mother. A little old woman. In her house, there was a small staircase leading downstairs. These were quiet people, peaceful as sheep. And Kyriákos kept pushing that old woman. Where have you hidden the oil, where have you hidden the oil? The poor woman was going down the stairs, probably to show him where. How can you hide oil? Kyriákos was all worked up, he wanted that oil. And as he was pushing her with his rifle butt, the rifle went off and killed him. They immediately sent a dispatch to Trípolis. To his brother in Trípolis. He had stayed in Trípolis. He was another violent character, like Kotrótsos. He went around with a revolver, acting like some hotshot. As soon as he hears about this he rushes over to the Intelligence Bureau to kill Tsígris. To take revenge. And he emptied his pistol at him just as Kóstas was interrogating him. One shot, out of all those he fired, hit him. One. That’s how Tsígris was executed. By now the Germans knew they’d be leaving, and they begin to hand over their heavy weaponry to us. Artillery and mortars. So we could fortify Trípolis. The Germans. When they saw they were leaving they gave all that to us, plus ammunition. Trípolis was eventually fortified and mined on all sides. All the way out. In other words its defensive fortification was complete. Mines, mortars, and all thirty-six cannons. We had placed them at the important sites, and we waited. There were just about enough of us to make up one regiment. A lot of people. And many locals had enrolled too. Reservists as well as ordinary citizens. The ELAS troops gradually began surrounding us and threatening us over their megaphones. But each time they stormed us they achieved nothing. We were well secured. One sector was taken by Chrístos Haloúlos with Níkos Méngos. Níkos Méngos, a second lieutenant in the Reserves. He joined the Battalions in its final days. Like so many others. For protection. For self-protection. He was from Eleohóri, an Ionian Bank employee. An okay fellow. He died in Athens, never married. A very good man. Well, those men had secured their sectors well. Barbed wire, mines, heavy weapons. Why, a rabbit couldn’t get through there, let alone a man. But of course the rebels had their own methods. The method of drafting civilians. Unarmed civilians. At any rate, we kept on waiting. We’d listen to the radio, I’d got hold of a radio. A cousin of mine had bought it somewhere for me. A large one, dry battery cell. At night we’d tune in to the BBC. We were staying at Vanghélis Psalídas’s house. A true “Kolokotrónis” style house. It dated back to the siege of Trípolis.7 It had a stone fence and a wide entrance so oxcarts could go through. Psalídas was in Athens, now a member of EAM. We stayed at his house and filled it with firewood. When we left, we left behind enough firewood to last two years. We went out and hauled firewood. We said we’d spend the winter there. No. We said nothing, we knew nothing. We just hauled firewood. At the time we were waiting for government communiqués from overseas. That’s how we learned that Kanellópoulos8 had arrived at Kýthira. From the BBC. That he had landed at Kalamáta. From the BBC and through word of mouth. We heard about Meligalás,9 we learned about Stoúpas’s death. However you look at it, Meligalás was one massive execution. An inhuman execution. But Stoúpas fought at Gargaliánoi.10 To the last minute. He died with his pistol in his hand. They all died there. Not one of them was left alive. Not one man. Papadóngonas, in order to protect his units, and he did well, opted to bypass Mystrás. Where the Sparta Battalion was, that is. The rebels slaughtered them later on. Using cannons they had taken from us. After the capitulation. Kanellópoulos came to Trípolis accompanied by Tsiklitíras.11 Kotrótsos came out on his motorcycle to welcome him. Mihális Galaxýdis came out in his truck. Tsiklitíras, a ranking ELAS officer with the PEEA.12 Something like that. A colonel. The bishop was there. They stayed at a hotel. Aris arrived. In the meantime, and before the people began the manifestations, the organized demonstrations, we were instructed to get ready to go to Spétses. Those of us who chose to. We boarded trucks. With our arms, with our families and friends. And we went down to Ahladókampos, we arrived in Mýloi. We were at our wits’ end as to how to arrange our trucks into a defensive system. We bolted our machine guns to the hoods. There was nothing else we could do. Nothing. We finally made it to Mýloi. A small vessel began ferrying us to the other side. In Spétses a British platoon undertook to guard us. The British. In the end they did this and more. They took our pistols away. Officers had the right to carry pistols. Then a group of ELAS rebels arrived by boat from Ermióni. They arrived by boat to parade right there in front of us. Provocatively. Then we routed them. We drove them away, they didn’t set foot there again. And that was the excuse for the British to take our pistols away. Then an order came that we would be transferred to a detention camp in Athens. For our own safety. This must have happened around the end of November. I don’t remember the date. I won’t risk guessing. They were afraid that the Communists would wipe us all out. It would have been quite an accomplishment if they killed two hundred officers down there. Beginning with Papadóngonas. It would have been quite a feather in their cap. I mean in the context of the December Uprising. At the beginning of the Insurgency. They could have pulled it off too. So a minesweeper came. Two minesweepers. And they took us away to Piraeus. About two hundred of us were left. Possibly fewer. The Tavouláris brothers, Stravólaimos, a colonel, and some others. Quite a few officers, anyway. By nightfall we reached Piraeus. There they put us on trucks. They took us to Goudí. Escorted, once again, by the British and the state police. At Goudí, the big brass were housed in the Gendarmes Academy. Lower-ranking officers like us and civilians went to Sotiría Hospital. ELAS rebels were holding Sotiría. That was the company we kept. Garrison commander of Goudí was Manólis Léngourdas. A gendarmes colonel. From Roúvali. An apathetic sort, no interest in anything. Most of us men were from Kastrí. We were all fellow villagers. He showed no interest at all. Perhaps he couldn’t. He had a small unit with him, very small, unarmed, backed up by about fifteen Brits. Those Brits played soccer all day. And at night they slept. It was more like we were protecting them than them protecting us. That’s when the December Insurgency broke out. We were roused to action. The history of the Uprising is well known. The Gýzi district was across from us, and they fired at us daily. Most of all, those tracer bullets and the mortars drove us half crazy. We were still unarmed, like cattle waiting to be slaughtered. At which point we planned an operation, we stormed Sotiría. In broad daylight. We took them by surprise. We shot a watchman they had posted on a pine tree. A sniper. We took him out. We took control of the Sotiría building with the help of a group belonging to the 3rd Mountain Brigade. We found arms, we took them. Enough for ourselves and for three hundred more men. We took them. We started distributing them. But the British came and stopped us. They confiscated them — the British, again. And so we dispersed. We began moving down toward the center of Athens. The stream of Ilissus was there, and we followed it down. It was supposed to be out of range of the crossfire. But of course it wasn’t really. Because there was frequent mortar firing down there. At any rate, we kept moving along. We would go to Kolonáki,13 which was a demilitarized zone. We’d gather information, and we’d give out information. We’d see fellow villagers there, we’d get the news from home. In the evening we’d go back. Some would stay there, if they had the means. Nikólas Makrís, Nikólas Petrákos. They stayed near the stadium, at Grigoríou’s house. Thodorís Grigoríou. Yes, that’s where they stayed. I would go back. And the story ended roughly like this. The ELAS troops were pushed back from the greater Athens area, and then the Várkiza Treaty was signed. We were free. We went to Argos. We couldn’t go any farther. Later on we went to Trípolis. March came at last. And then we went up to Kastrí.