Iain Gale - Jackals’ Revenge

Lamb turned to Bennett. ‘Keep your wits about you, Sarnt-Major. If the Jerries have managed to get round the flank this would be the perfect spot for an ambush. Smart, have you managed to raise Battalion on that thing yet?’

‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’

‘Don’t worry, not your fault. I just wish we knew where they were.’

He looked at the tattered map that he had taken from the canvas map case at his feet. ‘Once we get through this pass there’s a village and then a fork in the road. We take the right, towards Corinth. Once we get over the bridge there we are in the Peloponnese. Then it’s a straight run to the sea.’

Bennett smiled. ‘I do like to be beside the seaside.’

‘Home in time for tea, sir?’

‘Not quite, Turner. But we’ll give it a try.’

The mood of optimism was short lived. As they drove on, the pass became ever narrower. Lamb scanned right and left. ‘Be alert. Keep your eyes open.’

They rounded a bend in the road and Bennett slammed on both brakes, bringing the carrier to an abrupt halt. Lamb jolted forward, knocking his chest against the front of the carrier and dropping the map. ‘Christ, Bennett, have a care …’ Then he saw that ahead of them to the left lay a defensive barrier of stones made into a chest-high wall – a sangar, which was matched on the opposite side of the road by another, leaving a narrow gap only just wide enough for a lorry to negotiate. The top of each wall was lined with Lewis guns and riflemen, while a heavy machine-gun had been set up in the middle of the road. As they looked on a sergeant appeared from behind the right-hand sangar, his Thompson gun held at waist level and fixed directly on Bennett.

The man spoke in a broad New Zealand accent. ‘Who goes there?’

‘Friend,’ said Lamb, quickly. ‘North Kents. We’re trying to get to Corinth.’

The sergeant whistled and within seconds they were surrounded by his men, rifles at the ready. The sergeant advanced to the carrier and peered at Lamb. ‘North Kents? What the bloody blazes are you lot doing here? We thought you were Jerries. Almost let you have it.’ He paused. ‘Maybe you are Jerries …’

Lamb shook his head. ‘Good God, not again. Listen, Sergeant, I went through all this in France a year ago. How many times? I don’t know. What d’you want to know? Who won the Cup last year? The length of Don Bradman’s inside leg? The name of the King’s dog? Where Winston Churchill gets his bloody cigars?’

The sergeant peered at him. ‘Nah, sir. You’re kosher. No bloody fifth columnist would ever have said that. Sorry, sir, can’t be too careful. We’re the rearguard, see. Jerry can’t be far behind you. Haven’t you heard, sir? They’ve taken Corinth. Yesterday. Only took them two hours. Paratroops. We blew the bridge, though.’

Lamb felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. If the Germans had taken the Corinth canal then that meant the whole of the Peloponnese was cut off. He was aware that the New Zealand sergeant was still talking. ‘… I said why don’t you go through there, sir. The pass broadens out again there, sir. You’ll find yourself a billet if you need one.’

Thanking the sergeant, they drove on and Bennett summed up Lamb’s thoughts. ‘I wonder if the battalion got across before the Jerries took it.’

‘Well one thing’s for sure, Sarnt-Major. If they did, we can’t follow them now. There’s only one way out for us and that’s through Athens.’

There was no point in trying to make Athens by nightfall, and if they carried on along the road in daylight they would just be more sitting targets for the Luftwaffe. Better to stand here and set off again in the early hours of the morning under cover of darkness. ‘We’ll stop here, Sarnt-Major. Pull up over there.’

They parked the trucks and Lamb walked across to one of a number of the sangars which dotted the area. The pass, as the sergeant had told them, had broadened out and given way to olive groves and a landscape of cultivated fields and vineyards. He found a corporal. ‘Is your officer anywhere?’

A voice spoke from behind a wall of rocks. ‘Actually I’m over here. Who wants to know?’ A tall New Zealand captain walked forward. ‘Captain Nichols. And you are?’

‘Lamb. North Kents.’

‘The Jackals. Didn’t know you were here.’

‘I’m trying to get my company through to Corinth, but there’s no hope of that now.’

‘You heard, then. About Corinth.’

‘Yes. Paratroops.’

‘Well, we knew they’d do it one day. So what now?’

Lamb shrugged. ‘Well, I reckon that the battalion must have got through, but wherever they are it’s Athens for us.’

The captain nodded. ‘Yes. Look, I’d get your heads down, if I were you. No point in leaving till the morning, before sun-up, of course, or you’ll be strafed to bits by Jerry. You’ll find a free olive grove over there somewhere, near my boys. Help yourself. And you’re welcome to join the mess, Captain, what there is of it. Boiled eggs and sardines last time I looked – by the crateful. And the CO’s still got a bottle of whisky, if the old man hasn’t drunk it all already. Reckon you could use a glass. Your men can scrounge a bit of bully off our cook if they like. I think we’ve got enough to go round. Found a wrecked rations convoy back in the pass.’

Lamb smiled at the unexpected generosity. ‘Thanks. I’ll see that they’re fed.’

Nichols explained the position to him. ‘The road here twists its way up a gorge, with a wonderful view down towards Kriekouki. That’s the road Jerry will take. D Company’s over on the left, then A Company, and C Company’s over there, away out on the right. They’re right up on a knoll, with a sort of ravine between them and A. They’re all linked in to Battalion headquarters by lines. The Aussies did that for us this morning. Not that it’ll do anyone much good at the moment, of course. Complete wireless silence. Not a peep, or Jerry’ll throw the lot at us. Worst thing is that if we get bombed there’s bugger all we can do but sit it out. Those Aussie gunners have been told not to fire at any planes unless they see us.’

‘But if we’re getting bombed they’ll have seen us anyway, won’t they?’

Nichols shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me, I just know the orders. I don’t have to make them, thank God.’ He smiled, indicating an opinion of the High Command, and then carried on. ‘So the Bren carriers from 20 Battalion are on the left flank, and the others and the machine-gun company are out on the right, just in case Jerry decides to drop any more paratroops. Oh, and we’ve got part of an Aussie field ambulance unit in the village. You might need them.’

Lamb nodded and looked across to the left flank, where the Bren carriers were, but saw nothing. Their camouflage was good. The ground too was in their favour. The lower slopes of the mountain were covered with a sort of short scrub, rather like broom; then farther up was bare rock. As far as Lamb could see most of the hills on the north side were wooded, right down to the edge of the valley. It was dense cover: pine, holly and oaks. On the whole he felt more secure here than he had at Thermopylae.

Eadie, Wentworth and Sugden saw to the men before handing over to their sergeants and joining Lamb at the ‘mess’, which consisted of two groundsheets and some camouflage netting slung between some olive trees. An orderly had managed to find enough crates to act as a table, so there it was that they sat, sipping warm beer that the quartermaster sergeant had found in a taverna in Levadia, while Lamb accepted a measure of the colonel’s precious scotch.

The New Zealand captain talked to Lamb about the Greek landscape. ‘Terrible country here, you know. God knows how they farm it. Nothing but blasted rock. The only thing that’ll grow are blasted olive trees. Hardly surprising there’s nothing but bloody goats. Christ, who the hell would farm bloody goats? Now you want to come and see New Zealand, old man. You haven’t seen grass till you see our fields. And our farms. I’ll show you what real farming is. Honestly, Lamb. If you want a new start after this is all over, come and see me. I’m not kidding.’