Jackals’ Revenge. Iain Gale
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Retreating, I mean.’
Lamb shrugged. ‘Well, yes, you’re right, Hugh. I didn’t expect to be doing this again, not so soon. But the main thing is that, whatever happens in war, you must never stop believing. The trouble with the Jerries out there is they believe they can’t be beaten. But I tell you they can. We can beat them, and we will. If not here, then we’ll beat them soon enough.’
‘We can’t really beat them here, though, sir, can we?’
‘No, if you want me to be honest. But as I told the men, as far as I can see all that we can do is hold up the German advance and then get away with whatever we can.’ He looked across to Bennett and Valentine. ‘Sarnt-Major, come and tell the lieutenant how easy it is to beat the Nazis.’
Bennett grinned and walked over.
‘Tell Lieutenant Wentworth what we did to the enemy in France, Sarnt-Major.’
‘Well, sir. Gave him a right bloody nose. Blew up an air base, we did, and captured a colonel. Had them chasing around all over after us. And then we got all those men away off the beach, sir, didn’t we. And before that, up north, Mister Lamb – sorry, the Captain – well, he just walked out with a sack of grenades and took out two enemy positions and …’
Lamb cut him short. ‘All right, Bennett. That’s enough, I think.’
Wentworth looked at him. ‘Sir? Did you do that?’
‘Some other time, Lieutenant. It’ll have to wait. Thank you, Sarnt-Major. The main point is that the Hun can be beaten. He’s not some bogey-man. He’s human like you and me. We beat the Ities in Egypt and we can beat the bloody Jerries too. But maybe not just yet, if you see what I mean. So get back to your platoons and when they come make sure you don’t do anything silly. I want all of you, all of you, with me when we get aboard that boat to Alex.’
They saluted and left Lamb with Bennett, Valentine and Mays. It was the best that Lamb could manage to keep Wentworth’s spirits up. But he had seen the boy’s face. He knew, they all knew, that their position was hopeless. Not just here at the pass, but in a global sense.
It was perhaps even more hopeless than it had been a year ago, even though Britain itself was no longer under threat of direct invasion. The RAF had seen to that back in September. Nevertheless, with Greece under the jackboot, Egypt was threatened. And if Egypt fell then the way would be open for Hitler to walk into India. And then the end of the Empire and no more men from Down Under. Then they really would have their backs to the wall, and he wondered whether they would survive. Lamb caught himself. Mustn’t think like that. Defeatist talk. This war was all about morale. Wasn’t that what he had just told the men? If they believed in themselves they would come through as victors.
Valentine spoke. ‘Of course you know why we’re really here, sir?’
‘No, Valentine. You tell me, because I’m sure you’re going to.’
‘Well, sir, we’re here because those chaps in the High Command all studied Greek at Eton and Harrow and they’re a little sentimental about this old place. Can’t stand the idea of Nazis jack-booting about all over their precious temples.’
‘I thought you were a Classical scholar yourself, Valentine.’
‘In a way, sir, but not in the way they are. It’s Greece for the Greeks, sir, in my book. With them it’s personal. You see they all have ancestors who came over here in the eighteenth century and pinched the statues to smarten up their stately homes. And now they just can’t bear the idea that the Jerries will do the same.’
Lamb slept fitfully and had strange and disturbing dreams about Greek statues and the General Staff, in the last of which the New Zealand captain dropped from the sky by parachute, shouting ‘eggs and whisky’. He could still hear the words in his head as he was awoken by the sound of two explosions, jolting him into semi-consciousness. Coming to, he realised that they came from the direction of Thebes. He found his watch.
It was 3 a.m. Lamb got to his feet and, stumbling through his prostrate men in the olive grove, bumped into a Kiwi corporal.
‘What the hell’s happening? Any idea?’
‘There’s an enemy column advancing towards us, sir. A hundred vehicles at least. Tanks too.’ The word sent a chill through Lamb. He had a secret phobia of tanks. Of being crushed beneath their tracks. He had seen in France what that could do to a human being. He had noticed earlier, though, while talking to Nichols, that the country to their immediate flank was almost certainly tank proof. Nichols had told him that there was a track through the village of Villia up to Kriekouki, but it too was steep and easily covered. There would be no option for the German armour but to advance along the road.
There was a crash from the front and then the whoosh and thud of artillery rounds followed by several explosions. Lamb raced towards the forward sangars and saw in the valley below them that the fire from the Australian artillery had already set fire to two trucks from which, in a vision of hell, enemy infantrymen were leaping, their clothes ablaze. The sound of their screams mingled with that of gunfire and echoed across the hills. He looked along the road and saw, behind an advance guard of motorcycle troops, three more lorries outlined against the night and in front of them the unmistakable shape of a tank.
‘Here they come. Stand to.’
As the tank slowly climbed up the pass towards them, Lamb yelled again. ‘Wait for the tanks. Fire at the infantry.’
They were only 1,000 yards away now. He felt the knot tighten in his stomach as it always did when they went into action, and the dry mouth that came with it. He checked his Thompson gun, the weapon he now favoured above a pistol. One full magazine and three more in his pockets. That would do for now. The tank reversed briefly, shoving the burning trucks off the road to allow those following to pass through. Again the artillery crashed out, hitting another truck, but the rest of them lumbered on, jammed tailboard to radiator on the narrow road. The motorcyclists had halted now and had established themselves in cover on either side of the road. Within moments their heavy machine-guns were spitting death at the New Zealanders. More Germans were spilling from the backs of the trucks now, diving for cover in the scrub.
Lamb yelled. ‘Now. Open fire. Fire at the infantry.’
The three platoons opened up, and as they did so the New Zealanders around them joined in, turning the pass ahead of them into a killing ground filled with a horizontal rain of burning lead. He watched as the German infantry tried to burrow deeper into the ground to avoid the fire and as the rounds hit home, sending the young stormtroopers hurtling back like marionettes in a ghastly dance of death. Lamb squeezed the trigger of the Thompson and it kicked into life, spraying the scrub before him. He heard Bennett shout, ‘Keep it up, boys. Don’t let them get away.’ All the frustration of the past few weeks, the anger at dead friends and comrades and the knowledge that they were an army in retreat, was released in an instant. For a moment Lamb’s men forgot that they could not win this battle, that no matter how many Germans fell to their bullets they would eventually be forced to pull back. All that mattered for this moment was the fact that they were winning. They were killing the Germans in the pass, cutting through Hitler’s finest with round after deadly round of small-arms fire that had in minutes transformed a peaceful Greek hillside into an inferno. One man from Number 2 platoon stood up and, shouting some inaudible war cry, fired his rifle from the hip. Eadie yelled at him to stay down, but it was too late. He fell, almost cut in two by a hail of bullets from the machine-gun. This was no pheasant shoot. There were men out there firing at his lads.
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