Jackals' Revenge Read online

  Lamb called out, ‘Stay down. Stay in cover.’ A burst of automatic fire ripped through the night air just above his head. There was a cry from his left as another burst of German fire hit home. But it was paid back twofold. The rifles and machine-guns spewed bursts of flame into the night, the bullets ricocheting off the stones and tearing at the trees and bushes.

  And then it was over. As quickly as they had come the Germans were running away across the scrub and through the vineyards, climbing back into the trucks, limping into the undergrowth and crawling through the short vines away from the stream of bullets. Still the artillery on the heights fired into the column, and more trucks burst into flames. Those that were still intact began to reverse down the hill, and the tank, which, pinned down by the gunners and blind in the dark, had showed itself powerless in such a situation, followed as fast as it could go.

  Lamb gave the command. ‘Cease firing.’ The Jackals held their fire, all but three men who, elated by their unexpected success, carried on shooting at shadows until their platoon sergeants had shouted themselves nearly hoarse.

  Lamb surveyed the road and hills before them. Counted eight lorries and two motorcycles burning on the highway.

  He saw Nichols. ‘Well, that sent them packing. I wonder how long before they try again.’

  ‘Not long, I should say. If they do.’

  ‘They won’t try to bomb you out, will they? They need the road intact.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure. They don’t care how they get rid of us. Then they’ll just fix the road, or build a new one. They’re already building a new bridge at Corinth.’

  Mays found him. ‘Sir. Two wounded. One bad, Marks. Hit in the thigh. He’ll need to be treated, sir.’

  Nichols spoke. ‘Our MO’s somewhere by the command post to the rear. Take him there, Sergeant. I’d better see to my own men.’

  Lamb walked across to the left as they were helping Marks back to the aid post and gave him a smile. ‘Well done, Marks. You’ll be fine.’ He looked around at the others, sitting in the moonlight on the rocks, wiping down their weapons and sensed not just exhaustion now but a sense of achievement. ‘Well done, all of you. That showed them. Sarnt-Major, make sure they’re ready in case Jerry tries it again. And be ready for air attack too. They know where we are now.’

  It only took a few minutes before the recce planes came over. They flew close to the ground, like hawks hovering over a wheat field, swooping and climbing in their search for prey. There was no point in trying to hide. It was too late for that, and no sooner had the planes gone than others appeared over the mountains. Dorniers, lumbering in. The heavy stuff. Lamb saw them and joined in the warning shouts.

  ‘Aircraft. Take cover. Take cover.’

  The aircraft were not as low as the Stukas. There was no frantic, screaming dive, but looking up he could see the bomb doors open and watched as the black sticks fell from the belly of the plane. He ran to one of the stone sangars and found himself crouching next to Bennett, Eadie and Smart, and it crossed his mind that this sort of thing was really of no use as cover against air attack. He prayed that the order forbidding anti-aircraft fire would be lifted, but it was a full ten minutes before he heard the crump of the Australian batteries as they tried to down the bombers. He looked up and saw little puffs of smoke appear in the sky around the planes, but by then it was too late.

  ‘Just in time,’ scoffed Eadie. Some distance over to their left another sangar filled with Kiwis had taken a hit and its useless stones lay scattered across the valley, along with the remains of its occupants. Lamb looked away as the Dorniers turned for home.

  As the dust settled and the post came to life, with desperate medics searching for signs of life, Nichols came up to him, smiling broadly. ‘Haven’t you heard? We’re pulling out. Being relieved by 1st Armoured and the Rangers. You’d best get ahead of us and make time. No point in waiting – you’ll just get caught up in our undertow, and there’s nothing else you can do here. Our sappers are going to blow the pass anyway. Jerry will have to make a new way through.’

  The adjutant, it seemed, had established a control post at the Villia crossroads to check out the brigade and the hangers-on, while the Kiwis’ CO, again in charge of the rear party, supervised the blowing of demolitions in the pass. After the excitement of the raid, Lamb again felt the cold of the night and shivered. ‘Charles, find the others and get the men together. We’re moving out.’

  ‘Can you say where to, sir?’

  ‘Athens, as far as I can see. Then a boat to Alex. After that it’s anyone’s guess.’

  Bennett found them. ‘Sir, no casualties from that last lot. We were lucky, sir.’

  ‘Yes, damned lucky. Let’s hope it holds out.’

  They watched as stretcher-bearers passed them carrying what had once been a man. Galvanised, Lamb spoke. ‘Right. Let’s get moving.’ Eadie sped off with Bennett and within minutes the men had assembled, rubbing their hands together and blowing on them against the cold. They lined up in platoons and sections and Lamb looked them over. There was no denying it, they were hardly fit for Horse Guards, as scruffy a bunch of soldiers as he had ever seen. But they were alive, and that was what mattered to him. And they were going to stay that way.

  Before the German attack the transports, including their own carrier and lorries, had been moved a few miles to the rear and they made their way on foot at first.

  As they passed through, Lamb heard the explosions as the first charges went off, bringing what sounded like half the old mountain down on to the road.

  ‘Jerry’ll never get through that lot, sir,’ said Bennett. ‘Leastways, when he does we’ll be long gone.’

  Lamb heard Valentine speak, to no one in particular.

  ‘A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;

  An hour may lay it in the dust.

  That’s Byron. Lord Byron, if you will. You walk, gentlemen, in the cradle of civilisation.’

  On their arrival at the transport area they were met by the unexpected and welcome sight of four Australian corporals and a handful of Australian nurses handing out tots of rum. Bennett held out his tin mug. ‘Blimey, this is a turn-up for the books.’

  Valentine piped up. ‘I thought this went out with Wellington.’ He smiled at a nurse. ‘I’ll have a double please, my dear. Just like a Friday night at the Bag o’ Nails.’

  An Australian sergeant approached them. ‘You got transport here, sir?’

  ‘Yes. One carrier, two lorries. Where did you leave them, Sarnt-Major?’

  ‘Over to the right there, sir. In those olive trees.’

  The sergeant nodded at Lamb. ‘Very good, sir. But you’ll have to wait your turn with the others. There is a queue.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Valentine, taking a short nip of rum.

  They found the trucks and Lamb produced the distributors which he had had the foresight to remove, carefully replacing each one. As they waited and slowly sipped at the acrid spirit, they watched other units depart, queuing up for their turn to get away to freedom.

  At last the sergeant nodded them on, saluting Lamb, and the three vehicles rumbled out on to the road. As they hit the track an Aussie redcap, standing at the roadside, yelled across. ‘Put your foot down, mate. We don’t want to hold up the ones coming behind.’

  Bennett shook his head. ‘He’s got some hope, sir. No headlights. That’s the order. Isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the order, Sarnt-Major. Stop the Jerry planes from seeing us in the dark. Better do as he says, though. Quick as you can then.’

  ‘Whatever you say, sir.’ Bennett pushed gingerly on the accelerator and soon they were doing a comfortable 15 miles an hour along the narrow road, just able to see the rear of the truck in front, by the light of the moon.

  ‘Just as well we can’t see a blind thing, sir.’ Turner said. ‘Reckon there must be a sheer drop over there.’

  At that moment, Bennett pushed the carrier round a turning and Lamb was suddenly aware
in the moonlight of a yawning ravine directly under their tracks. ‘Good God, man. Be careful.’

  ‘Christ, sir. Sorry, that was a bit close.’

  ‘Too bloody close, Sarnt-Major. Let’s try and get there in one piece.’

  Lamb wondered whether the rest of the battalion had made it across the Corinth canal before the German attack. He prayed that they had and would get away from the Peloponnese. But that was of no immediate concern to him and his men. From what Nichols had said, the Germans were advancing from two directions now. He had no doubt that they would soon complete their bridge across the canal.

  He turned to Smart. ‘Have another go at raising Battalion on the wireless, Smart, will you?’

  “I tried an hour ago, sir. There’s just no signal in the mountains.’

  ‘Well, have another go. You never know, do you?’

  There was a click in the darkness and then the familiar hum of the set in its blackout cover as Smart began to talk into the hand-piece. After ten minutes he gave up. ‘Nothing, sir. I told you, it’s the mountains.’

  Lamb nodded and pushed himself deeper into the seat, his hands tucked under his armpits for warmth. The next thing he knew, he was lifting his head, aware that he must have fallen asleep. He quickly took in their surroundings as one vine-covered hillside succeeded another. He looked at his watch. For almost half an hour, it seemed, he had been drifting in and out of sleep. They were all exhausted, of course, but he knew that they would have to find that extra ounce of strength if they were to get away.

  Here the road to Athens was no more than a tiny, winding, dusty track crammed with refugees and soldiers: Greeks, Brits, Kiwis, Australians. Most were on foot and only the lucky few, like the Jackals, in trucks. Lamb and his men, scarves over their mouths and noses against the dust, drove on without lights, as ordered, their road lit only by the stars and the moon. Even so, they could barely see thirty yards in front of them. After Bennett’s near miss with the cliff edge, they drove at a tortuously slow pace over the next few miles of curling roads and ragged hills.

  Lamb swore. ‘Damn this. Switch on the lights, Sarnt-Major, or the Jerries’ll be on our tails before we ever get to Athens.’

  ‘You sure, sir? We were ordered to …’

  ‘I know what the orders were. Switch the damn things on. They’ll see us in the daylight soon enough.’

  Bennett switched on the lights, bathing the road ahead in a white glow, and moments later they began to accelerate. Clearly the men in the vehicles in front had had the same idea and were now some distance ahead.

  Bennett grinned. ‘That’s more like it, sir. Permission to put my foot down.’

  ‘Permission?’

  The Bren carrier lurched forward into full speed, which, although only some 30 miles per hour, after the appalling slowness gave the impression to its occupants that they were on the racetrack at Broadlands. The trucks behind them followed suit. It took them just over another hour to manage the thirty miles to the outskirts of Athens, and as they left behind the final range of hills Lamb relaxed. The road flattened out quickly now and became straighter. He had kept the map before him and continued looking up to verify their position. But when he did so this time, he gasped. For the dawn was with them now and the sun’s pink and orange rays began to pierce the night sky, falling upon the ancient capital and glinting off the whiteness of the Parthenon.

  3

  Athens was in chaos. The streets and boulevards, which only a week ago had seen the well-heeled drinking cocktails at the hotel bars and cafés filled with the locals, were now thronged with a quite different type of visitor. Refugees had of course been arriving in the city for more than a year, from Smyrna, Rumania, Russia, even Poland. But now the place seemed to Lamb to have become the hub of the world, brimming over with every nationality, and there was no mistaking the mood of the newcomers. The place stank of fear. The local people, though, seemed strangely sanguine.

  Driving more slowly now into the ancient city, the company were greeted by several Greek civilians with a thumbs-up sign. It seemed bizarre to Lamb and singularly inappropriate.

  Valentine, who, as he spoke Greek of a sort had transferred to the lead vehicle, whispered to him. ‘Sir, they think it’s the way we always greet each other.’

  Lamb suspected, though, from their smiling faces that they might be some of the Greek fascists about whom they had been told. The streets were daubed with anti-Italian slogans but he wondered whether these men hadn’t come out from hiding in the expectation that soon their friends the Germans would be among them.

  Most of the Greeks, however, he knew to be a proud people, and President Metaxas himself had refused the ultimatum to submit to Italian occupation. Unanimously Greece had united against the Axis when it had seemed that only Britain stood against Hitler and Mussolini. And now, thought Lamb, this is what they get for all that faith and defiance. We were put in here as a political move, and now, when they need us most, we’re leaving them, abandoning them to their fate.

  The little convoy made slow progress, hampered by the press of civilians as they smiled and waved. A pretty, dark-haired girl with brown eyes stepped up to the carrier and planted a kiss on Bennett’s cheek. He shied away as the others laughed. Mays joked, ‘Oi. Careful, miss. He’s a married man.’

  Funny, thought Lamb, how it feels as if we’re being welcomed as liberators, when they know all too well that we’re about to abandon them. What sort of people could they be to have such strength of spirit?

  While he and every one of his men knew that time was of the essence, they were glad at least that there was no apparent present danger on the rooftops and in the streets of the ancient capital. The danger from the skies, of course, was ever-present.

  Lamb was not sure quite where he was aiming for, but it had occurred to him that, with so many Allied soldiers trying to find senior officers, the British Legation might be a good alternative starting point for discovering a means of escape. He clutched his tattered and spineless copy of Baedecker’s Greece and thanked God he had brought it with him.

  The Legation, he knew, was in the Hotel Grande Bretagne, and according to the book that was in Constitution Square. Turning left, they found themselves beside the terrace of a large building, Italian in style and baked by two centuries of sun. On the terrace in front, among the carefully manicured gardens, some steamer chairs lay broken and surrounded by empty wine bottles. The army’s been here, he thought. He sniffed, and Valentine saw him do it. ‘It’s gum, sir, that smell. Sap from the pines. Nice, isn’t it.’

  Lamb turned to him, bemused. ‘Uh yes, very pleasant.’

  ‘It always says “Greece” to me, sir, don’t you agree?’

  ‘You know Athens well?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you, sir? A trip to study the antiquities, when I was up at university.’

  Lamb shook his head. ‘Where haven’t you been, Valentine? In that case you can point us in the direction of the British Legation.’

  A few blocks on they found what he had been looking for. The Hotel Grande Bretagne was a huge neo-classical building built a little like a wedding-cake, with a colonnade of Romanesque arches running the length of the front. Lamb told the men to wait and, jumping down, climbed the steps to the massive entrance doors. Inside the place was in uproar. The air was filled with the stench of burning papers. The few civil servants still remaining ran from room to room. He tried to stop one of them but was brushed aside. Looking around he saw a sign: the words ‘Billiard Room’ had been crossed out and ‘Information Office’ written in. Lamb walked towards it and found himself at the rear of the old hotel. There was a large mirror on one wall, and catching sight of himself he was momentarily horrified at his appearance. His brown, almost black hair, which in peacetime and on leave had been cut in a neat, military style by Truefit and Hill, had grown ragged in the month since the regimental barber had last had a go at it. The stubble to which he had grown accustomed, shaving just once every four days to save water, had gr
own almost beard-like, and the face that it hid was sallow and despite the tan somehow pale. But it was his eyes which most shocked Lamb. They seemed sunk into their sockets, as if all the misery he had seen in the past few weeks was hidden in their depths. He looked away and carried on. At the end of the corridor was a green-painted door.

  He knocked and, not waiting for a reply, went in. A bespectacled man in his late forties, in a black suit, aided by another, much younger, was shoving pile after pile of papers on to the fire, which was burning gloriously. He turned and saw Lamb, his face ruddy from the fire glow, his grey hair tousled to the point of absurdity.

  ‘Army? You’re not needed here. Your chaps have cleared out. I should find your own place. Wherever that is now.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I was just trying to find out about transport and someone told me …’

  ‘Yes, that’s the trouble, you see, Captain. Everyone knows better than the other person. Everybody tells someone something but nobody has the right answer.’ He paused for a moment, distracted from the burning. ‘This is the British Legation, Captain, not the Quartermaster’s stores. We do not deal in matters of military transport. I have quite enough to do packing the place up before the Germans get here. Now please leave us alone and find your own people.’

  Lamb nodded and left, closing the door on the scene as the man threw more papers on to the cheerfully blazing pyre.

  Outside Lamb found the men waiting, eager-faced. ‘Sorry, no joy there I’m afraid. The top brass have cleared out and the place is full of pen-pushers from the consulate. And bloody rude ones at that. We’ll just have to make our own way.’

  He was about to get back into the truck when he turned, distracted by the noise of a commotion across the square. A group of civilians were arguing. There was nothing so remarkable about that. The thing was that this group of people was so obviously English.

  There were three men and a woman. One of the men was tall and well-built, another short, thin and bespectaled, the last squat and slightly overweight. They wore a variety of clothing – tropical suits, blazers and even an Argyle-patterned jersey. The fat man was dressed in an astrakhan coat and sweating profusely. The woman was dark-haired and wore a fur coat and a silk scarf. They stood around a pile of small but expensive-looking suitcases, a single cabin trunk and, bizarrely, a portable gramophone. A little moustachioed Greek in a shabby black suit, white shirt and black tie – presumably someone’s servant – hopped and muttered around them as if he intended to physically propel them out of the town and out of his responsibility.