Eric Ambler - The Schirmer Inheritance

The following afternoon he had the reply.

“HAVING LOOKED UNDER SO MANY STONES,” it said, “SEEMS PITY LEAVE ONE UNTURNED STOP GO AHEAD TRY CONFIRM OR OTHERWISE FRANZ DEATH STOP SUGGEST GIVING IT THREE WEEKS STOP IF IN YOUR JUDGMENT NO SERIOUS HEADWAY MADE OR LIKELY BY THEN LETS FORGET IT. SISTROM.”

That night George and Miss Kolin left Cologne for Geneva.

Miss Kolin had interpreted at conferences for the International Red Cross Committee and knew the people at headquarters who could be of help. George was soon put in touch with an official who had been in Greece for the Red Cross in 1944; a lean, mournful Swiss who looked as if nothing again could ever surprise him. He spoke good English and four other languages besides. His name was Hagen.

“There is no doubt at all, Mr. Carey,” he said, “that the andartes did often kill their prisoners. I am not saying that they did it simply because they hated the enemy or because they had a taste for killing, you understand. It is difficult to see what else they could have done much of the time. A guerrilla band of thirty men or less is in no position to guard and feed the people it takes. Besides, Macedonia is in the Balkan tradition, and there the killing of an enemy can seem of small importance.”

“But why take prisoners? Why not kill them at once?”

“Usually they were taken for questioning.”

“If you were in my position, how would you go about establishing the death of this man?”

“Well, as you know where the ambush took place, you might try getting in touch with some of the andartes who were operating in that area. They might remember the incident. But I think I should say that you may find it difficult to persuade them to refresh their memories. Was it an ELAS band, do you know, or an EDES?”

“EDES?”

“The Greek initials stand for the National Democratic Liberation Army-the anti-Communist andartes . ELAS were the Communist andartes -the National Popular Liberation Army. In the Vodena area it would most likely be ELAS.”

“Does it matter which it was?”

“It matters a great deal. There have been three years of civil war in Greece, you must remember. Now that the rebellion is over, those who fought on the Communist side are not easy to find. Some are dead, some in prison, some in hiding still. Many are refugees in Albania and Bulgaria. As things are, you would probably find it difficult to get in touch with ELAS men. It is complex.”

“Yes, it sounds it. What real chance would there be, do you think, of my finding out what I want to know?”

Monsieur Hagen shrugged. “Often in such matters I have seen chance operate so strangely that I no longer try to estimate it. How important is your business, Mr. Carey?”

“There’s a good deal of money at stake.”

The other sighed. “So many things could have happened. You know, there were hundreds of men reported ‘missing, believed killed’ who had simply deserted. Salonika had plenty of German deserters towards the end of 1944.”

“Plenty?”

“Oh yes, of course. ELAS recruited most of them. There were many Germans fighting for the Greek Communists around Christmas 1944.”

“Do you mean to say that in late 1944 a German soldier could go about in Greece without getting killed?”

A pale smile drifted across Monsieur Hagen’s mournful face. “In Salonika you could see German soldiers sitting in the cafés and walking about the streets.”

“In uniform?”

“Yes, or part uniform. It was a curious situation. During the war the Communists in Yugoslavia, Greece, and Bulgaria had agreed to create a new Macedonian state. It was all part of a larger Russian plan for a Balkan Communist Federation. Well, the moment the Germans had gone, a force called the Macedonian Group of Divisions of ELAS took over Salonika and prepared to put the plan into execution. They didn’t care any more about Germans. They had a new enemy to fight-the lawful Greek government. What they wanted to fight with were trained soldiers. It was Vafiades who had the idea of recruiting German deserters. He was the ELAS commander in Salonika then.”

“Can’t I get in touch with this Vafiades?” George asked.

He saw Miss Kolin stare at him. An expression of anxious perplexity came over Monsieur Hagen’s face.

“I’m afraid that would be a little difficult, Mr. Carey.”

“Why? Is he dead?”

“Well, there seems to be some doubt as to just what has happened to him.” Monsieur Hagen seemed to be choosing his words. “The last we heard of him directly was in 1948. He then told a group of foreign journalists that, as head of the Provisional Democratic Government of Free Greece, he proposed to establish a capital on Greek soil. That was just about the time his army captured Karpenissi, I believe.”

George looked blankly at Miss Kolin.

“Markos Vafiades called himself General Markos,” she murmured. “He commanded the Greek Communist rebel army in the civil war.”

“Oh, I see.” George felt himself reddening. “I told you I didn’t know anything about the Greek set-up,” he said. “I’m afraid this kind of name-dropping misses with me.”

Monsieur Hagen smiled. “Of course, Mr. Carey. We are closer to these things here. Vafiades was a Turkish-born Greek, a tobacco worker before the war. He was a Communist of many years’ standing and had been to prison on that account. No doubt he had a respect for revolutionary tradition. When the Communists gave him command of the rebel army he decided to be known simply as Markos. It has only two syllables and is more dramatic. If the rebels had won he might have become as big a man as Tito. As it was, if you will forgive the comparison, he had something in common with your General Lee. He won his battles but lost the war. And for the same kind of reasons. For Lee, the loss of Vicksburg and Atlanta, especially Atlanta, meant the destruction of his lines of communication. For Markos, also faced by superior numbers, the closing of the Yugoslav frontier had the same sort of effect. As long as the Communists of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania helped him, he was in a strong position. By retiring across those frontiers, he was able to break off any action that looked like developing unfavourably. Then, behind the frontier, he could regroup and reorganize in safety, gather reinforcements, and appear again with deadly effect on a weakly held sector of the government front. When Tito quarrelled with Stalin and withdrew his support of the Macedonian plan, he cut Markos’s lateral lines of communication in two. Greece owes much to Tito.”

“But wouldn’t Markos have been beaten in the end anyway?”

Monsieur Hagen made a doubtful face. “Maybe. British and American aid did much. I do not dispute that. The Greek army and air force were completely transformed. But the denial of the Yugoslav frontier to Markos made it possible to use that power quickly and decisively. In January 1949, after over two years’ fighting, the Markos forces were in possession of Naoussa, a big industrial town only eighty miles from Salonika itself. Nine months later they were beaten. All that was left was a pocket of resistance on Mount Grammos, near the Albanian frontier.”

“I see.” George smiled. “Well, there doesn’t seem to be much likelihood of my being able to talk to General Vafiades, does there?”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Carey.”

“And even if I could, there wouldn’t be much sense in my asking him about a German Sergeant who got caught in an ambush in ’44.”

Monsieur Hagen bowed his head politely. “None.”

“So let me get it straight, sir. In 1944 the guerrillas- andartes you call them, do you?-the andartes killed some Germans and recruited others. Is that right?”