Thomas Greanias - The 34th Degree

“But where in Greece?” pressed Racini.

“The German Naval War Staff said it last week in that cable to General von Berg when they suggested that landing attempts will most likely be here on Corfu.”

“Here?” cried Racini. “But when?”

“That, unfortunately, I cannot tell you,” Buzzini admitted as he turned to the window once again and looked out across Garitsa Bay. “But I’ll wager you one thing, Sergeant: the Baron knows. Oh, yes, he knows.”

What was left of the National Bands of Greece base was being mopped up by the SS Death’s Head unit of Standartenfuhrer Spreicher, a man who delighted in this sort of thing, personally picking off any wounded men who were half dead. Medics, he reasoned, were unnecessary baggage in these sorts of operations. After all, he himself had lost half his face in Crete and managed to survive. If any of his own men were wounded, they were to fight to the death or be shot by their brothers in arms. It was simpler that way. All for one and one for all.

Spreicher worked his way through the debris and bodies, searching for Andros. He spotted a British battle dress uniform by the gorge and found the man sprawled facedown, still alive and groaning in pain.

Digging the toe of his jackboot under the man’s body, Spreicher kicked him over. “Hey, Englishman,” he said in crude, brutal English. “It’s morning. Face your maker.”

Death-glazed eyes looked up at him from the ravaged face. Out of the dirt-encrusted mouth came a spurt of blood that dribbled down the chin and matted in the red beard. Half torn from the soiled uniform was a New Zealand insignia.

“Where’s the film negative?” he demanded. “Where’s Andros?”

When he received no answer, he put his jackboot on the New Zealander’s skull and began to apply pressure. His second in command, Oberfuhrer Borgman, ran over with the S-phone. “Linder wants to know if there are any prisoners up here.”

Spreicher looked down at Doughty. “Well?”

When there was no reply, he dug the heel of his boot deep into the skull until there was a crack and he crushed it. Then he turned to his second in command and said, “None up here, Oberfuhrer. What does Linder say at the bottom of the gorge?”

“His party had nothing to report down there.”

Spreicher moved to the edge of the gorge and looked down the nine-hundred-foot cliff walls. Linder and his men were busy looting what little they could find among the smashed bodies of the Greek andartes strewn among the rocks. Spreicher spat and wiped his nose. The stench of burned horse and human flesh was foul. He told Borgman, “Looks like you’ll have to inform General von Berg that we have no prisoners or survivors, so far as we can tell. Nor any film.”

Borgman looked terrified. “You want me to say we found nothing?”

“Tell him we’re still searching.” Spreicher frowned as he surveyed the destruction and devastation. Damn, he thought, I missed all the fun on this one. Furthermore, he hadn’t obtained the microfilm, and he knew all too well from his predecessor, Ulrich, what happened to those who failed von Berg.

He heard a shout from across the gorge and saw Miller waving his hands. “Go see what he wants,” he told Borgman.

While Borgman left, Spreicher looked down at the New Zealander’s head on the ground and watched the blood seep out of the cracked skull.

Borgman returned with good news. “Miller and his men found tracks on the other side of the gorge, sir,” he reported. “They’re not ours, and they’re fresh. Someone must have made it over the bridge before she blew, perhaps someone from that patrol we ran into during our advance.”

“General von Berg’s orders are clear,” Spreicher said with a gleam in his eye. “We must hunt this man down. We’ll turn over every village between here and Sparta if we have to. Andros cannot get away. Let’s move.”

“Zu Befehl!” replied Borgman.

Yes, thought Spreicher, surveying the destruction, the fun was just beginning.

His mother was in a life jacket, her arms wrapped around him as they floated in a sea of fire, bodies everywhere, some swallowed up by the burning oil from the sinking ocean liner in the distance. As the crest of a wave lifted them up, his mother’s tired arms loosened, and the wave parted them forever, her screams of “Christos! Christos!” fading in the darkness of night. For Chris, there were no words he could form, only a helpless cry as he turned in his bed, soaked with sweat, aware of another presence.

“Better to enter the kingdom of God with one leg than to have two and be thrown into hell.”

Andros blinked his eyes open to see two eyes, alive with light and compassion, looking down at him. Then a sharp pain shot up his leg, and he shivered.

The voice said, “You have both of them, don’t worry.”

Andros felt for his leg, but another wave of darkness washed over him. He groaned in agony. A pair of soft, soothing lips kissed him gently on the mouth, and he reopened his eyes.

It was Erin, her face shining like that of an angel in the shaft of sunlight falling through a crack in the roof of what seemed to be a cave.

Andros groaned. “How long?”

“You were out for a couple of hours,” she told him. “Good thing we found you and got that shrapnel out. Either infection would have set in, or the Nazis would have found you. Looks like that microfilm of yours is more significant than we thought.”

Andros was fully awake now, his nausea gone. Only the pain in his leg remained. He looked down to see his thigh wrapped in bloodied strips of linen. His thigh and nothing more. His pants had been removed.

“I was changing the dressing when you woke up,” she explained. “It’s not like I haven’t seen a man before.”

Andros held up his hand to tell her that was enough, thank you. He propped himself up and had a look around, careful to avoid making eye contact with Erin. He was in a small cave, which he was sharing with three horses and a cache of weapons, several dozen Sten guns, ammunition, grenades, and what looked like four hundred pounds of plastic high explosive in quarter-pound bars wrapped in cellophane.

“You’ll have to excuse the accommodations, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances,” Erin said. “This is one of several storage facilities the EOE has in these parts.”

Andros saw daylight at the entrance to the cave, which was screened by a forest of pine trees. “Where are we, exactly?”

“No-man’s-land,” Erin explained as she prepared the new dressing. “Somewhere between Free Greece and the German zone.”

Andros remembered the destruction of the base, the carnage, Doughty. “Free Greece?” he repeated hoarsely. “Our camp was blown!”

“You managed to survive,” Erin replied, carefully peeling the old wrap from his thigh.

The pain came back with a vengeance. “Oh, God,” he gasped. “It kills.”

“Not if you sit still.” She started to apply the new wrap to his thigh.

Andros grimaced as soon as the dressing touched his skin. But his attention was diverted to the distant roar of a low-flying aircraft somewhere outside the cave.

“Reconnaissance plane,” Erin explained. “Searching the hills and valleys for us. Probably in radio contact with ground forces. We’re going to have to stay put and keep quiet until dusk.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Andros replied, feeling another wave of pain coming on as Erin wrapped the new dressing.

“This might hurt a little,” Erin said, applying more pressure.

Andros started to protest, but Erin once again fixed her mouth to his and muffled his cries while her firm hands held his body steady on the outside. He was surprised to find himself responding to her touch, and if Aphrodite weren’t foremost in his thoughts, he might have been disappointed when the pain finally subsided and Erin let him go.