I reached the rendezvous with my men in the late afternoon. The Abbot, Father Christodhoulos, was his usual charming self, plying us with bread, olives, goat’s cheese and raki. Shortly after dark, the sound of muffled hooves could be heard on the steep path leading down the gorge. Captain Dhiavolos burst into the monastery, bellowing for food and drink, his men apparently unaffected by the long and dangerous trip.
The submarine was expected at midnight, but such operations rarely went according to plan, the southern coast of Crete being a perilous place even in daylight. At last, one of the lookouts spotted the brief flashing of a red light out to sea and we prepared to greet the crew in their inflatable dinghy.
The German is a patient hunter. They waited until we were all on the narrow, stony beach before the lights from the patrol boat came on and the machine guns on it and on dry land opened up. I later learned that HMS Whale Sharktried unsuccessfully to torpedo the enemy craft before turning back to Alex. Andartesfell all around me, Captain Dhiavolos’s chest riddled with bullets. I was knocked to the ground by a round in my left shoulder, but two of my surviving men managed to drag me out of the lights and up a steep defile. I later heard that Father Christodhoulos and his six monks had been shot against the wall of St Athanasios.
I have no doubt that the ambush was a result of treachery by the EAM man known as Kanellos. I first met him during the Battle of Crete, when he tried to dissuade Greek gendarmes and local people from taking part in the attack on Galatsi. At the time, I thought he was a coward and denounced him as such to the people. From then he worked tirelessly to undermine both my efforts and those of my fellow SOE officers. He had the deluded idea that passive resistance would be more effective and less costly in terms of Cretan lives. Fortunately, the islanders left him in no doubt as to their feelings on that issue. After the Germans slaughtered us on the beach and took their savage revenge on the churchmen, Kanellos disappeared from Crete. No doubt he returned to the mainland and continued to sow the seeds of dissension that led the country to civil war after the Nazis had been defeated. Such men are dangerous beyond their station — the one known as Kanellos was of scarcely medium height, with a great hook for a nose and unnaturally bright blue eyes. May the earth lie heavy on his bones and those of his vicious, misguided comrades. As for the silver, it was lost to the occupier and probably ended up in the cellars of the arch-thief Goring.’
Mavros noted the date of the book — it had been published in 1957. Waggoner wouldn’t have known about the discovery of the safe in the Jewish home at that time, and Kersten’s donations to the museum were still far in the future. Which didn’t mean that he wasn’t in full possession of those facts now.
His eyes getting heavy, Mavros logged off and lay back on the bed. He was uneasier than he had been before going on the Internet, but this time he was repressing thoughts that were trying to break through, even though he knew there was no future in that. The vendetta wasn’t exactly helping, either.
He fell into the sleep of the anxious, thinking before he went under that he was only the latest in the long line of intruders into Cretan history to be wondering if he’d leave the island in one piece.
Mavros was woken by the sound of a key in the lock. He had left his own in there, so the door would not open. Still semi-submerged in sleep, he stumbled out of the bedroom,
‘Who is it?’
‘Ah, Mr Alex, it is you?’
Barba-Yannis stood on the landing, a tattered straw hat on the back of his head. ‘I always come on Thursdays to water the plants on the back balconies. I wasn’t sure if. .’
‘Don’t worry,’ Mavros said, admitting the old man. ‘It’s time I was up anyway. Would you like coffee?’
‘I should be making you coffee, Mr Alex.’
‘No, no. You do your watering and I’ll make the coffee. How do you take it?’
‘ Varyglyko, my child. I always had a sweet tooth.’
Mavros had a quick shower, then found the briki. He made the old man’s sugar-laden brew in the long-handled metal pot first, followed by his own unsweetened cup. He found Barba-Yannis sitting at a small table on the balcony to the rear of the living room, water dripping off the marble floor to the unused space below.
‘Thank you, my child,’ the old man said, drinking from the glass of water Mavros had brought with the coffee. ‘I can hardly walk down the street now without needing to sit down.’
‘You look very well.’
Barba-Yannis threw up his wrinkled arms. ‘I am on my own, like many of my generation. My wife died last year and my children and grandchildren are in Germany. They have done very well. They say I will soon be a great-grandfather.’
‘May they live for you,’ Mavros said, calculating that the old man would have been in his early twenties during the war. ‘Tell me, why did they go to that country?’
‘I went there first myself,’ Barba-Yannis said. ‘In the Fifties things were not good here and I had a record — I was in EAM during the war. I wasn’t a communist, mind — I never liked the party’s hard-line stance. But it was better to be absent for some years, especially since there were jobs in the factories up there.’
Mavros looked into the rheumy brown eyes. ‘But didn’t you feel bad after everything the Germans did here?’
‘Of course I felt bad!’ the old man said, slapping the balcony rail. ‘I lost relatives and friends — comrades. .’ His voice failed.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Barba-Yannis drew his forearm across his eyes. ‘No, my child, it is good to remember the past. The younger generations do not like to — they prefer to make money rather than honour our sacrifices. Besides, there is no benefit in hating. The German soldiers paid a heavy price too.’
‘One of them even put back a lot into the local economy.’
‘You mean Rudolf Kersten? Yes, he is greatly admired.’
Mavros caught a hint of disapproval. ‘But?’
The old Cretan rubbed his thinning hair. ‘But some people say he took part in one of the massacres. Even though he denies it, I’ve never been able to see him as the repentant do-gooder most people do.’
‘Makrymari,’ Mavros said, in a low voice.
‘You’ve been doing your homework, my boy,’ Barba-Yannis said, nodding in approval.
‘I’m trying,’ Mavros smiled. ‘I hear there was a Jewish population in Chania.’
‘Ach, the Jews. They kept themselves to themselves, but we didn’t mind them.’ The old man lowered his head. ‘You can imagine what happened to them.’
‘Sent to the camps?’ Mavros said, aware that many thousands of mainland Greek Jews had been gassed.
‘Worse. They were loaded on a ship in Iraklio with Italian soldiers who had surrendered. For years, it was thought that the Germans had sunk it themselves, but not long ago I heard it was torpedoed by a British submarine. No survivors.’
A chill ran through Mavros. War really was hell, not only because of the slaughter of combatants and non-combatants, but because of the ghastly twists of fate leading to ‘accidents’ that destroyed the lives of countless families — including those left to mourn.
He roused himself. Barba-Yannis was a potentially useful source about resistance activities.
‘Did you know an EAM man called Kanellos?’
‘Did I know Kanellos?’ the old man asked, with a gap-toothed smile.
‘Kanellos was that rare thing — a hero who cared about other people. After the first days of the invasion, he swore he would never fire a gun again.’