1 We leave at night for Kaltezés. The entire rebel battalion. They took me with them. Next morning another kapetánios sees me. He was taken aback. He asks, Why wasn’t he executed? And he got into a fight with Mavróyiannis. Then they take me and they send me straight to Stemnítsa. They hand me over to the militia. And they had me free to move about. There was a taverna, the men from the Organization ate there. The taverna was run by an old man. He asks me, Where you from? From Kastrí, I tell him, from Karátoula. What’s your name? Douénis. Are you by any chance old man Kóstas’s son? Yes, I tell him. I used to tin-plate copper pots and pans, I used to go there. I knew your father. His son comes in. He was in charge of Stemnítsa. He tells him, Take good care of this fellow, he’s the son of a friend. The next day Liás Drínis shows up. A cousin of the Pantelís family. Kapetán Liás arrives with some men from Oriá. The Sioútos brothers and some others. He sees me. He tells me, Who in hell’s name did you take after? Your brother’s a good man. He was talking about Tássos. I didn’t say a word to him. And I haven’t forgotten that. He goes over to the garrison headquarters, he briefs them. Liás was out to get me. They grab me the next day and send me to Chrysovítsi. They lock me up in the detention camp. Chrysovítsi had a detention camp. A couple of days go by. One of the rebels says, Who’s from Kastrí? I say, I am. A company of volunteers is on their way here right now. They had us outside in the yard. It was about five o’clock in the afternoon, the time we were supposed to bring up the food. They prepared it down at some sawmill. Then we hear them down below, singing as they came. It was someone else’s turn to do chores. I tell him, Let me go instead, some men from my village are coming. And he did. I take two large tin cans, with the rebel right beside me, we go down a ways. I see a group of men from Oriá. I see Nikólas Roússos. Hey, Nikólas, I tell him, no answer. Yiórgos Kontós, same thing. Vanghélis Kyriazís, the priest’s brother-in-law, same thing again. They pay no attention. You’d think I was a leper. I leave the cans. I walk on a ways. I find Kóstas Logothétis. I find Látzos. I find Vasílis Marinákos. I find Thodorís Kounoúfos. I find Yiannákis Dáskalos. Where you been, they ask me. Here, I tell them, in Chrysovítsi. The rebel had lost sight of me, he comes up behind me, he gives me a good kick. Asshole, I’ve been looking for you. He kicks me again. The others start yelling at him. They had no weapons. None of them. The men from Oriá were volunteers. The men from Karátoula had been drafted. Forcibly. And they still had no weapons. I take the food, and I went back up. In the morning they call me. Douénis, go to the interrogation room. The men had talked to Vanghélis Kyriazís. They approached him. And he did take an interest in the end. I walk into the interrogation room, I didn’t know a thing. What’s your relation to Vanghélis Kyriazís, someone says to me. I got scared. None, I say. He’s from another village, near mine. How near? We live across from each other. We talk from our balconies. I’m from Karátoula, he’s from Oriá. Right this minute, they tell me, you’re leaving with an escort to go to Vytína. And you’ll report for duty to the company of men from Kastrí. That was that. One of the rebels went with me and took me to Vytína. He took me to the company and handed me over. The company officer was someone named Kolovós, from Trípolis. He’d also been drafted. Later on I found out he was killed in Ahladókampos. In Kolosoúrtis. In 1949 or 1950. He was in the service, a Reservist. A small tank overturned and crushed him. One of those small personnel carriers. The open type. He played right midfielder for Pan-Arkadikós. So he took me there, to the company. The next day they took us back. From Vytína to Chrysovítsi. We had to be enlisted. To be formally divided into units. Kóstas Logothétis goes and writes in as sick. And he left. Látzos goes and does the same. And he left too. I go and write in as sick. The men from Oriá jump up. He was in the detention camp, and we brought him here. We let him out of there so he would come with us. In the end we stayed. Me, Thodorís Kounoúfos, Yiannákis Dáskalos, Vásios Marinákos. Vásios. So they took us away, they gave us a mule. One mule for each of us. They took Yiannákis Dáskalos to another company. The three of us who were left stayed together. With one mule each, close together. They took us down to Trípolis. The Germans had left. They take us to Meligalás. They’d wiped it out. They take us to Gargaliánoi. They fought the villagers there. They wiped them out. Stoúpas was there, he defended himself to the end. From there we go back to Trípolis. Trípolis surrenders, the Security Battalions. They signed treaties. They take us down to Argos, from Argos they take us to Isthmia. Unarmed, with the mules close together. From Isthmia they take us back to Argos. In Argos my only chance was to run into people I knew. People from Kastrí. I go and find Panarítis. Vanghelió’s husband. She was married there, Vanghelió, Yiánnis Lymbéris’s daughter. I find Yiórghis Tsoulouhás. He tells me, They’re taking you to Athens. There’s going to be war in Athens. I had decided to escape. I tell Vásios, I tell Thodorís, I tell Yiannákis Dáskalos. They say Okay. We arrange to meet that night at Panarítis’s place. Yiannákis doesn’t show up. Dáskalos didn’t show. We stayed behind too. We were scared and we stayed. The next day I find him. He says, Listen, I’d like to take a blanket or something along. I tell him, Forget the blanket. They’ll kill us in Athens. They’re taking us to be killed. The next day he showed up. We left, I knew the terrain there. We used to work as gleaners there in the summer. Folks were poor. We head out from Argos toward Kefalári. From Kefalári we go up to Kalamáki. From Kalamáki we come to Platána. It was a six- or seven-hour walk. Vásios’s sister and five other girls were there in Platána. Gathering olives. For a daily wage. We knock on the door at night, they opened for us. They made us food and we ate. We come to the village. We say, Let’s not tell anyone we ran away. We’ll say we’re on leave. A week goes by. Vásios tells us, Let’s go hunting. We go to Xerokámpi, we shoot four hares. We go back. The next day the rebels show up, looking for us. They go to Yiórghis Látzos’s house, the brother of one of our men. He advises us to look out for ourselves. I manage to hide just in time. My brother Tássos comes to see me. I tell him, I can’t stay here. Go to your brother-in-law and get an identity card from him. It was Panayótis Laganás, he was the one arranged all those things. And Yiánnis Kapetéris. Tássos went there, they gave him the papers. I get up at night, I leave for Argolís. I reach Kefalári. I find Sophia married there. Vanghelió’s sister. Sophia Kefálas, that was her husband’s name. She says, You can stay at our house. They had a mill, in Neró. I stayed on my guard. One day her son comes running home from there. Rebels, he tells me. From Kastrí. It was Yiórghis Kontós and Vanghélis Fotiás. They were hunting men down. Looking for Antonákos, looking for Yiánnaros. Full of hate. I go to Sophia’s, she shoves me into a trunk. They came inside, they saw the things. They didn’t see anyone. They left, I get out of the trunk. If I’d stayed in there any longer I’d have been asphyxiated. I left Kefalári. I had a brother in Koutsí, Leftéris. The old man had spread us out. He had him doing menial work, earning his keep. I go to Koutsí. What are you doing here, Leftéris says to me. This is their hornet’s nest. Right here. Get out, he says, go to Kofíni, to Yiánnis. That’s my other brother. There was a big plot of land there. The owners had gone off to Athens. They were hiding out there, to stay in the clear. There were five or six dogs on that plot of land. Yiánnis takes me inside. There was a big storeroom, with some sheets of tin lying around. I made a kind of shelter there. As soon as I heard the dogs barking I’d hide. After a few days Yiánnis tells me, I’m going to Náfplion. Yiánnis was hard of hearing and he lived there all alone. I tell him, Bring me a newspaper. I wanted to find out what was going on. It was January. The December Uprising had already taken place, but I didn’t know about it. Finally Yiánnis comes back. He went and sold some oranges and he came back. He says, The British are in Náfplion. I tell him, Cut it out, it was rebels you saw. But he knew the Brits. He hid them on his property in 1941 when they were leaving. With their short trousers. He gives me a paper, they had actually marked off a zone up to Mýloi. The British up to Mýloi. And beyond there the rebels. Then I say, I have to get out of here. I asked Yiánnis to give me a sack of wheat. Ten okás or so. So as not to go back empty-handed. He wouldn’t give me any. The crop isn’t mine, he said. I look around and I see some barley in a corner. I grab some and take it with me. And I’m off. I arrive all loaded up at Dalamanára. At Dalamanára I run into Havdotóyiannis, riding a mule. He gets off the mule, he starts crying when he sees me. He throws his arms around me. We don’t know which of our men we’ve lost, I tell him. Clear out, he tells me, head for Argos. Go to Gonéis’s inn, you’ll find everyone there. I go to Argos. I go to Gonéis’s inn. And it was true, they were all gathered there. The Pantelís brothers. Harís Lymbéris, Antonákos, and the rest, all the men from Karátoula. They were all in there. And we stayed there until the rebels had completely cleared out. By then it was March. Then we went to Corinth and worked. Until Easter when we came back here. There were no more rebels from ELAS, they were gone. And may all that never happen again.