Searching for Sofia, page 25
‘Yes!’ shouted Danny as he and Jack lined up one parachutist after another. It was ridiculously easy, for the men were trapped by the cords and billowing fabric, the design of the apparatus rendering them helpless to manoeuvre effectively while the colourful chute acted as a bulls-eye, assisting the most poorly skilled rifleman to find a target. And of the chutists fortunate enough to escape the gunfire, many suffered the humiliation of being caught in tree branches, dangling for all of the world like Christmas decorations. All they could do was raise their hands in surrender, allowing the Allies to cut them down, relieve them of their weapons and take them prisoner.
* * *
After the sky cleared, soldiers and civilians alike worked together—old men, women and children, even dogs scampered through the fields, checking bodies.
Colonel Walker was generous in his praise. They’d held the Retimo Airfield with relative ease against the terrible cloud that approached them so menacingly only hours earlier. Jubilantly they walked the fields, admiring the Schmeisser sub-machine gun they’d seized from the parachutists and discovering that some of the parachuted targets were not human, but rather large boxes, which on opening revealed still more weapons and ammunition. It was certainly a victory for the Australians, and they grinned from ear to ear. Over the day, runners arrived from across the island, providing updates of the German invasion, including the pleasing information that the Allies had also held firm at Heraklion.
Morning had just broken when a runner arrived from the west, declaring that Maleme was in trouble. New Zealand’s 22nd Battalion had fought hard, but the defence of the western edge of the airfield had proved to be weak and the Germans had gained a foothold on the island. Help was needed.
There was no shortage of volunteers, and it took all of Colonel Walker’s authority to restrain his troops, reminding them that even though a first wave of Germans at Retimo had been defeated, there may well be a second onslaught. Jack admired the calm and considered bearing of their commanding officer as he digested the runner’s information before selecting a group of men to join him, of which Jack was glad to be numbered. Despite frequent interruptions from Danny, eager to be off to crush the Germans, Colonel Walker sketched detailed diagrams in the sand, discussing their best approach to Meleme. While the CO’s methods seemed slow, they made sense. Jack knew that the likes of Danny would have gathered a posse and hurtled towards the Maleme Airfield like Celtic warriors charging into battle, without thought, and quite likely with dire consequences.
* * *
After an hour’s journey bouncing along in the back of a creaking lorry, it was late morning when Colonel Walker led the unit across the ridge, where they had an unrestricted view to the beach. It was obvious to Jack that they were too late. Below them, Germans, tens of thousands of them perhaps, were like ants constructing a nest, systematically unloading supplies from the hulls of the giant aircraft now resting on the airfield. Motorcycles, troop carriers and jeeps had been set in neat rows. In a stupendously large pile, Jack saw hundreds of wooden crates, no doubt filled with food, weapons and ammunition. Worse, though, was the sight at the far end of the beach: a fenced-off area patrolled by armed German soldiers. Within its bounds, groups of men in the familiar khaki of the AIF and New Zealanders were seated on the ground, defeat in their bearing.
A group of Maori soldiers joined them on the ridge, and together they searched for a weakness in the German position but could find none. Finally, with darkness beginning to fall, Colonel Walker gave the order for them to retreat to higher ground—he didn’t want them to be trapped by Germans and added to the POW count.
Just as darkness fell, they arrived at the cliff top. Called “42nd Street”, it was the stretch between two olive groves that the 42nd British Battalion had named after themselves weeks earlier. Suddenly, one of the men—an Aboriginal named Saunders, who always walked out in front—gave a sharp wave of his hand, indicating for them to be still, and they discovered that they were not alone; a German patrol was camped on the road ahead of them.
Jack wasn’t sure who was more surprised, as he could hear the grunts of the Germans as they struggled upright, grappling for their weapons. Following a split second of silence, the New Zealand Maori reacted, erupting into bloodcurdling shrieks as they forged forward. Without thinking, Jack pulled his rifle off his back and entered the melee, swinging his gun in all directions, shooting wildly. The skills of hand-to-hand combat, developed on the training fields of Puckapunyal, came to the fore as the unit launched themselves upon the Germans in a frenzy. Nothing could describe the carnage of the next half hour, as close contact fighting continued until the Germans broke and ran into the bushes, the noisy sounds of their departure receding into the distance.
Of all Jack’s experiences to date, this battle ranked as the most truly grotesque. The hacking into bodies, blood streaming, shouting and grunting. The sense of being half-human, half-animal, locked in a fight for survival, not nation against nation, not army against army, but man against man. Kill or be killed, Jack had repeated over and over to himself as, with red splatters washed over his face, he’d attacked.
Knowing that the Germans would be regrouping, possibly returning for them at that very moment, they responded to Colonel Walker's signal to retreat at speed. In the twilight, they had to feel their way forward among rocks and trees. Jack touched his left arm, sticky and moist. Blood. He hoped that the wound wasn’t too bad. Judging by men about him, some limping, some being supported as they walked, he wasn’t the only one injured, which was hardly surprising.
Jack thought about the battle just fought. At both Bardia and Tobruk, he had managed to hold back from the fighting, although he’d kept his gun at the ready should it be needed, and he’d maintained his role of observer and sketcher. In Greece, most of the fighting had been from a distance, and while Jack had added his bullets to the assault, there was no surety that he’d hit any mark. At Retimo, certainly he’d fired into the air, his gun pointed at the hapless parachutists, and he’d even suspected one or two of his targets had crumpled in the restraints of their chute harness, but distance had obscured the emotional impact of the killing.
Nothing in those experiences had prepared Jack for the battle they’d just fought in the small clearing high on the cliffs of Crete. Picasso’s Guernica filled his mind. He’d seen a photograph of the painting in the morning newspaper the previous year. At the time it had been a sensation, firstly for its size, and for the fact that it had been rendered in Picasso’s fragmented cubist style. But, mostly, it was the subject of the painting that caused a stir: the carnage Franco’s troops had wrought on a small Spanish town. When Jack had read the article’s damning depictions of modern art and studied the photo of Guernica the newspaper had published, he’d been so disappointed. The painting seemed wild and fragmented. Where was the talented artist of the early twentieth century? The artist who’d painted such beautiful portraits when he was a child? The artist whose paintings through his Blue Period had depicted pain and sorrow so clearly that it could make you weep? The artist who’d told Jack that only when he experienced grief would he be able to paint truth? What truth was to be found in Picasso’s nonsense of Guernica, Jack had wondered.
Only now did Jack understand Picasso’s intent. No ‘realistic’ painting could evoke the brutality and horror he’d just experienced. Certainly, it had been staged within a physical world, but the stony ground, flailing limbs and the metallic thud of crudely employed weapons were a mere backdrop to the real battle: one of savage desperation to survive. Jack now could see that Picasso’s Guernica was a brazen shout to the world—war is not a compilation of neatly fired bullets and strategically placed bombs detonated from impersonal distances. Rather, it’s a terrifying chaos. A barbaric confusion of flailing and scrabbling, the wild discharge of bullets, the swinging of bludgeons whose purpose is to maim and kill. War slaughters and maims humans and beasts, the innocent and the guilty. One day, Jack thought, he would draw this battle, fought between the olive fields along the stretch called 42nd Street. Already, he had the image of the painting in his mind. Picasso would be proud of him.
* * *
Colonel Walker insisted that in view of their meagre firepower, famished state and utter fatigue, it would be best to seek refuge in the hills nearby until further orders could be sought.
Jack was relieved. The sides of his feet burned with each step forward. His socks, more holes than knit, seemed barely worth wearing. Each time he had a moment he’d reposition them, shift the pressure of his shoe away from the raw skin where blisters had formed. He had two plasters left in his kit and wanted to make them last for as long as he could.
Over the next forty-eight hours, dispatches came in fragments. A Cretan runner, moving through the trees like a shadow, delivered his message with breathless urgency. It had been issued by the battalion’s headquarters. An evacuation was being organised; they were to make their way to the south of the island, to a place called Sphakia, immediately. Leading them to the edge of the forest, the man pointed to the left, and signalled that they must go quickly and remain silent. He wished them well before vanishing into the forest.
If one good thing came out of the daylight for Jack, it was the discovery that his arm injury was insignificant, a slash which had bled profusely, but proved to be superficial. Others in the unit weren’t so lucky. Danny had received a slice across his face, which he bragged only added to his good looks. Jack gave him a swig of rum from his canteen to lessen the pain as a medical orderly from the New Zealand battalion attempted to stitch the wound. Far more unfortunate was a young man called Curly, who had taken a bullet to his knee that had left him in agonising pain and unfit to walk. Jack took his turn along with the others to carry him on their journey south, full of admiration for the young fellow’s determination to maintain cheer as they jostled him along inhospitable bush tracks.
‘Oy, oy, go easy, you bastards,’ Curly repeated for the hundredth time as he was dropped to the ground. He had to stand and use his gun as a crutch while those who’d supported him scrambled down almost vertical banks before raising him onto their shoulders again.
‘Ah, that’s better. I feel like the prince of Arabia, floating along on my magic carpet. Anyone got a smoke for me?’ Every few hours his bandages were checked and tightened and a large dose of rum was poured down his throat.
They’d anticipated that the walk would be tough—sixty miles across wild, rugged country. However, crossing the precipitous White Mountains with little food and scant water, with the ever-present threat of German sniper bullets sailing towards them from across the valley, interspersed with intermittent bombing from the skies above, was beyond anything they could have imagined. To add to their difficulties, no one knew whether the path they followed was the right one; they just forged in a southerly direction, navigating near vertical banks and crossing rocky streams from which they filled their water bottles. The track was so narrow, windy and precipitously steep that the journey was nothing less than a nightmare, and they were relieved when locals appeared from out of the bushes along its edge, pushing loaves of bread towards them, smiling encouragement, nodding and pointing the way. As the days wore on, more and more aircraft appeared in the sky, and they could hear the spluttering sounds of vehicles chugging along the pot-holed roads nearby. In addition, single shots and the distant rattle of submachine guns each acted as reminders of the peril they faced. There was nothing to do but keep moving.
Jack realised that they were not alone as they journeyed through the mountains. For whilst the troops responded to the order for evacuation, numerous others had learned that the Allies were leaving, and now the forest tracks swarmed with Cypriots and Palestinians, all straggling through the forests and making their way to Sphakia, hoping they too might be transported off the island.
Colonel Walker, ever vigilant, refused to let his men disintegrate amid the disorder surrounding them. Instead, he insisted that they stay tight, maintain discipline, look to the men directly in front and behind them and move quickly. Every few hours he allowed them a five-minute break to drink from a stream and regain their breaths, rebandage wounds and share tots of rum.
Despite the summer heat, Jack was glad for the quick pace their commander set. When he was not taking turns floating Curly along on his magic carpet, he strode forward, near the front of the group. Mostly, Danny walked behind him and was good for his banter, but Jack was determined to keep his eyes on the broad back of Reg Saunders, for the Aborigine’s instincts for pending trouble proved infallible. Jack learned that by watching the man’s left hand, he could interpret the silent signals that indicated they should slow down, or stand stock-still while Saunders evaluated the direction of a motor vehicle or a distant airplane that only he could hear. More than once, he turned around to Jack, his fingers to his lips, before leading the unit deep into the bushes, where they’d wait quietly as a German patrol passed by.
* * *
That they’d been forced to evacuate, yet again defeated by the German army, was a bitter pill for the troops to swallow. While proud of their efforts, the boys rued the lack of support from London. The lack of food, adequate weapons and means of communication was one thing, but to be denied air cover when they needed it most was another! Just as in Greece, the Germans had once more controlled the sky to gain advantage. If the RAF had come in over Maleme, how different things might have been!
They knew that Colonel Walker was also furious about the lack of support from the Royal Air Force, but ever the disciplined leader, his mind remained on the here and now rather than worrying about what could and should have been.
Nonetheless, he was quite outspoken about the lack of food or weapons available for his men, and throughout the last weeks, when rations finally arrived, he insisted that the gunners be given the greater share.
* * *
It was his excitement at the thought of seeing Sofia that kept Jack’s spirits buoyant. Once on the ship, it would be barely a day’s travel to Alexandria, and his mind was filled with anticipation of their reunion. Would she be pleased to see him or still be so angry that she’d turn away? No, the British officer had said that she’d sought news of him, asking everyone if they’d seen an artist called Jack. How lucky it was that he’d taken his pencil out that morning in Retimo so that the young man recognised him. What a chance event that was! This war seemed to be full of chances, some drawing him towards Sofia, others pulling him away from her. Perhaps the odds were with them after all, and soon they’d be together. Jack’s heart thudded with hope.
* * *
Finally, the settlement of Sphakia appeared—a cluster of buildings nested against the coastline at the base of a steep mountain range, with a series of small bays and a protrusion of land shaped like the foot of a goanna reaching into the sea. As they approached the descent, their path was blocked, not by the enemy but rather by a unit of British soldiers who’d set themselves up as gatekeepers, monitoring those who approached the beach. As they questioned the unit’s activities over the last week, Jack grew furious. He wanted to be onto the beach and into the waiting barges as quickly as possible, not standing here arguing with these pompous British idiots. ‘What do these rags and bloodstains tell you?’ he replied when they asked if they’d engaged with the enemy or been shirkers?
Danny shared Jack’s frustration. ‘Can you bastards just step aside? Because now that I’ve asked you polite-like, if you don’t move, I’m going to throw you over the edge.’
‘Danny!’ Colonel Walker’s voice was commanding, but he stood a few paces behind. Pretending they hadn’t heard him, Jack and Saunders stepped forwards to join Danny, and the three of them looked menacingly at the British officers whose uniforms looked far too clean for soldiers who’d been involved in recent battles.
‘Down you go, then, and perhaps your commanding officer might teach you a little respect,’ was the reply of one officer as Jack, Saunders and Danny pushed through. Danny veered precariously close to the man, now foolishly balanced on the edge of the steep bank.
‘What the heck do you think you’re doing?’
‘Mind your footing, now, mate... if you are not careful, you might take a tumble over the edge,’ Danny suggested.
Laughing loudly, the three descended to the beach, where thousands of people—civilians and soldiers alike—were gathered, with no apparent order among them and barely an officer in sight.
Colonel Walker passed them, growling, ‘Mind your place, boys, and stay with me,’ before leading them at a brisk march to join the tail of a long line of soldiers. Jack looked anxiously at the string of barges at work, ferrying groups to a huge naval vessel whose decks were already crowded. He scanned the sky for German bombers before shifting his mind to calculating the number of men lined up before him. He estimated there were approximately three hundred. It was going to be close, he realised, breathing deeply, fearing that the odds were against them. And forty minutes later, as he’d suspected, the ratio did not fall in their favour, for as the last barge filled, it was obvious that it was not going to fit them all in. A sombre Colonel Walker, in a tired but firm voice, pointed his finger towards them. ‘Private Sweeny and Private Murphy, off you go now. Best wishes to you both. May God keep you safe.’
They were the youngest of the group—Curly, of course, with his damaged knee, and Murphy who’d bravely staggered the last five miles across the island even though he was clearly finished. Fair decisions in impossible circumstances, Jack knew, despite his frustration at being thwarted at the last minute when he’d been so close to returning to Alexandria and Sofia.
Bitterly disappointed, he contained his emotions. He could hardly have stepped forwards and say that he must go—he had to find his wife,—or all the men were desperate for the arms of their loved ones. No one here knew that his situation was different. That his wife had been missing for two years and was now found. That she was over in Alexandria, barely four hundred miles southeast! He clung to the hope that another chance to leave the island would present itself soon. And, watching the barge as it left, he kicked himself for not having the foresight to pass a message through to her!
