Corporal Cotton's Little War (18 page)

‘If we ‘ad some ‘am,’ Gully said gaily, his mouth splitting in a wide grin that showed his awful false teeth, ‘we could ‘ave some ‘am an’ eggs if we ‘ad some eggs.’

There was tea but only two washed-out tins to drink it from because every mug that hadn’t been broken in the initial disaster had been taken by the Germans. There was also bully beef, tinned peaches and biscuit, and though it was spartan enough they were all hungry and nobody argued, either about the food or the discomfort of the splintered forecastle. Docherty was in a cheerful mood and kept eyeing the girl with merry, lecherous, boot-button eyes, making suggestive remarks about her while she tried to avoid looking at him as he tormented her.

As she finally rose to go, pink-faced and clearly understanding, Cotton rose with her. On deck she turned to him. ‘You must be careful,’ she warned. ‘Chrysostomos is a Cretan and Cretans are a savage people. They never forgive an injury, and you have made him look silly in front of Xilouris and Cesarides.’

Cotton remembered what Patullo had said about the Greek sense of honour.
‘Philotimo,’
he said.

She hesitated. ‘I’m sorry he took all those things, Cotton.’ She gave him a little smile. ‘But it is all over now, I think.’

Cotton stared upwards at the dark path through the trees. ‘You’d be better staying here with us,’ he urged. ‘Suppose he’s up there.’

She touched his hand in a curiously Greek gesture, as though to indicate all was well again between them and that she’d forgiven him for his brusqueness with her earlier.

‘Tomorrow,’ she agreed. ‘Perhaps you’re right and tomorrow I will. But I must go back to Ay Yithion tonight, to bring the Varvaras round. I’ll take care and I’m not afraid, and there is plenty of darkness.’

Then she was gone, melting quickly into the night, and Cotton heard her splashing along the fringe of the sea and the soft clatter of stones as she began to climb.

8

The signal was in code and began with the instruction that it was to be deciphered only by an officer of the rank of major or above. Baldamus’ eyebrows lifted and he vanished into his office, closed the door and started to work. When he’d finished, he reappeared and called for Ehrhardt.

‘What’s the state of our transport, Ehrhardt?’ he demanded.

‘Not very good,’ Ehrhardt said, ‘Consists mostly of cars.’

‘Lorries?’

‘Five.’

‘We need sixteen.’

Ehrhardt grinned. ‘I doubt if there are sixteen lorries on the whole island,’ he said.

‘There’d better be.’

‘What are they needed for?’

‘You’ll see when the time comes. Arrange for another eleven to be commandeered. I want them on the airfield by tomorrow evening.’

Ehrhardt scratched his head. ‘Where the hell am I going to get another eleven serviceable lorries?’

‘You’d better seek divine guidance.’ Baldamus smiled. ‘Because I’ve had instructions that they’re to be ready by first darkness tomorrow night. See to it, Ehrhardt. Send your men round the villages. I think we ought to be able to produce them if we look hard enough. After all, this island was being developed as a holiday area for exhausted Greek millionaires, and Panyioti owned that damned great museum of a place at Xinthos. I’ve had a look at it. It’s full of furniture, so there must have been lorries to carry it there.’ Baldamus’ voice was gentle but Ehrhardt knew that by hook or by crook he would somehow produce the eleven extra vehicles.

‘I wouldn’t like to guarantee that they’ll all be the same, Herr Major,’ he pointed out. ‘Some will be open. Some might even be pantechnicons.’

‘I don’t think anyone will argue,’ Baldamus said. ‘We have to move approximately two hundred and fifty men at great speed in the dark.’

‘Why?’

‘Never mind why. And since we’ve been talking about that residence of Panyioti’s, we’ll inspect it as billeting accommodation. Our two hundred and fifty men have to be housed.’

‘We could use tents.’

‘No tents.’

‘There are huts on the airfield,’

‘Not on the airfield.’

‘A hotel in Kalani?’

‘Not in Kalani, either.’ Baldamus’ voice grew a little firmer because he knew now what General Ritsicz had meant when he’d talked about the Panyioti residence. ‘I think Panyioti’s palace is handy both for the city and the airstrip. See to it, will you, Ehrhardt?’

It was Cotton who did the watch that night. Someone had to, because he didn’t want the Germans to return and catch them asleep, and despite the climb he’d made with Bisset and the girl, he didn’t feel tired and knew that the next few days were going to take a lot out of Docherty and the others. He had no skill with tools himself and it would be Docherty, helped by Kitcat, who would have to reassemble the engines; and Gully and Bisset - who claimed some skill as a carpenter - who would have to work on the hull. All Cotton could do would be tea boy, look-out and general dogsbody.

He could hear them all arguing through the open hatch of the forecastle, the old boring forecastle argument he’d heard hundreds of times in HM ships.

‘She did,’ Docherty said.

‘She didn’t,’ Gully retorted.

‘She bloody did, you know.’

‘She bloody didn’t.’

He wondered who they were talking about.

‘Disarmed, disrobed and de-bloody-flowered in one hour flat,’ Docherty insisted. ‘I was always good at it. Left ‘and behind her back so that when you pushed her down it was underneath. Her right in your left and what have you got -?’

‘Rape.’ Bisset’s voice sounded bored.

Docherty chuckled. ‘Well, you’ve got one spare hand,’ he said. ‘And that’s a distinct advantage. You’d be surprised how many times it worked. Anyway, half the time they’re saying “no” when they mean “yes”.’

‘What happens when they mean “no”?’

‘Well, that’s bloody hard luck. Sometimes I used to ask ‘em: “Do you rape easily?” I got a few clouts across the kisser, but I got a few rapes too.’

‘Didn’t you ever make a mistake?’ Kitcat asked.

‘Plenty of times. But I got a lot of birds as well.’

Cotton couldn’t understand how they could be so indifferent with Howard probably dying, then he realized it was a sort of defence mechanism that allowed them to shut their minds to suffering and concentrate simply on being alive.

‘It’s them books,’ Gully was saying. ‘That
No Orchids
and that
Fig Leaves Forbidden
thing you got down there. They get you worked up. You go on the way you are, you’ll end up like the last rose of summer.’

Cotton, who’d been brought up as a good church-goer with high moral beliefs, listened to them with disgust. Then, guiltily, he found himself thinking of a girl he’d been with the last time he’d been on leave in London. She’d had pale-blue veins in the porcelain whiteness of her breasts, he’d noticed, but her breath had smelled of whisky and there’d been a picture of a soldier in uniform on the mantelpiece.

Gully and Docherty were talking now about their war experiences, each trying to horrify the other.

‘When they bombed Liverpool,’ Gully said, ‘you could scrape ‘em off the walls.’

‘AH the time I was in the drink,’ Docherty countered, ‘this foot in the grey sock kept bobbing against my bloody ‘ead.’

Bisset’s voice came, weary and bored. ‘This grisly ritual of shocking each other with horror stories takes some talent for lying, you know. And you two haven’t got it.’

‘Who’s a liar?’ Gully said.

‘I dare bet
you
are. And so bloody boring you give a chap a headache.’

‘You can chew my starboard nipple,’ Docherty said cheerfully, then, as the voices died, Cotton heard Gully’s battered concertina and his breathy voice singing in a low monotone.

‘Roses round the door, kids upon the floor -’

Cotton sighed. For the first time in his service career, he began to see what command was all about. He’d often thought of ships’ captains as privileged people spoiled by too much attention and too much spare time, but suddenly he realized why. They needed their time for thinking. Cotton had become the leader of the little group of men struggling for survival, not by order of the Admiralty or by reason of superior intellect or training, but simply because he’d been the only one with any ideas about self-preservation. The others had accepted his leadership without question and now he was realizing what a lonely position he’d created for himself. No wonder the navy revered Nelson like a saint. Slight, tough, strong-willed, yet emotional as an actress, he knew exactly what moved men to perform miracles. Cotton wished he did.

Eventually, the muttering below died away and while the others slept he went to the captain’s cabin to check that Howard was all right. His breathing seemed to be quieter now, and Cotton began to think he might survive if they could only get him to where he could receive treatment. As he stared down at him, Howard opened his eyes. ‘Wotcher, Royal,’ he said.

‘Go to sleep,’ Cotton said. ‘It’ll be all right.’

Howard’s head nodded weakly. ‘Hurts a bit,’ he said. ‘What happened to Coward?’

‘He’s all right,’ Cotton lied. ‘Tomorrow we’re going to try to get you to a quack.’

‘Right.’ Howard nodded and slid away again into a shallow sleep.

Cotton sighed, wishing he hadn’t so much to think about. Climbing on deck, he drained the water tank into the empty rum jar the Germans had left and did anything else he could find to do. Then he completed the log, stating in simple terms - because he wasn’t capable of more - exactly what had happened to
Loukia’s
crew, how he had decided to take over
Loukia
in place of
Claudia,
and everything that had happened between him and Petrakis.

It rained soon after midnight and for the rest of the night he sat in the shattered wheelhouse staring at the sky and nursing the tommy-gun as he listened to the bassooning of the frogs in the stream and the high creak of the cicadas. At the back of his mind there was a nagging worry. He wasn’t quite sure what it was but it remained there all night. It was like something he was trying to grasp but couldn’t quite find in the darkness.

He was still sitting in the wheelhouse when he heard the first aircraft of the new day to the north. It sounded louder than before, as if it were not far from the island, and he noticed the muttering of guns from the mainland had begun again.

It stopped raining as the first faint colours of the morning came in the east and, going below, he made tea for the others. Gully sipped it warily.

‘Tastes like it’s been made outa shellac,’ he said.

He looked grubby and unwholesome and Cotton wondered why God had had it in for him so, to land him with a pair like Gully and Docherty.

Docherty yawned. ‘I was just dreaming about my bird,’ he said. ‘I was making a bloody good job of it too.’

‘I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a bird,’ Gully observed. ‘I won’t know what to do next time.’

‘It’s like riding a bike,’ Docherty pointed out cheerfully. ‘It all comes back when you get on.’ He paused, scratching his head, his eyes far away. ‘My bird was the wife of a corporal of Marines.’ He looked pointedly at Cotton, his face full of malicious glee. ‘Dim bastard, like most Joeys. I met her in a pub. Had a big bed, she did.

‘The corporal bought it for himself, only she was more often in it with me than him, see. Welsh, she was, and she had the nicest tits and legs you ever see. She was sitting on the bed starkers, all white and pink with green eyes, just taking off her stockings and looking at me like they do. You know - with her tongue going over lips - ‘ He gave a shudder and groaned. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said. ‘Why did I have to wake up?’

The light was increasing as Cotton returned on deck, and the day was spreading from the sea in long pale fingers into the heavens like violet ink rising through the veins of a tulip. Then he realized that above the rumble of artillery to the north he could also hear the low thud of an engine.

Terrified that they’d been caught, he dived below and got the others moving. They were still struggling to get Howard out of the captain’s cabin when a caique nosed round the headland. Standing on the bow was a small figure that was quite clearly Annoula Akoumianakis. Cotton climbed to the deck, Docherty just behind him, and as the others joined them another caique appeared. They were small vessels - one brilliant red, the other a blistering blue -- sloop-rigged, low-waisted, with clipper bows and rounded sterns. There were fishing nets on the deck and they were both low in the water.

As they edged between the rocks and nosed slowly towards
Claudia,
he saw there were several men on board, apparently led by the captain of the electric-blue vessel. The girl was waving, proud of herself, and, as she gave Cotton a special smile, he found he was pleased to see her and glad she’d forgotten the dislike she’d felt for him the previous day.

‘This is Dendras Varvara,’ she said, indicating the captain of the blue caique, a stout, elderly man in a striped jersey. She pointed to a grave-faced, shock-haired young man on the other boat. ‘This is Athanasios, his son. They have come to help. They will take your wounded man to Ay Yithion.’

Cotton grinned, delighted and relieved at this first sign of friendliness.

‘Thank you,
Kapetdne,’
he said.

The old man spoke a harsh unfamiliar Greek that was hard to understand at first. ‘She is a good child, this one,’ he said, slapping the girl’s behind. ‘May she prosper.’ He nodded towards the wrecked
Claudia.
‘That is a sad sight, my son.’

He offered a bottle of raki which they passed round.
‘Eviva,’
Varvara said. ‘One should always start the day with a drink.’

His son was watching the sea. He seemed nervous. ‘We came early,’ he said. ‘Before the Germans are out.’

‘What Germans?’ Cotton asked.

‘Two boats from Kalani have been armed,’ the young man said. ‘They are going to patrol the coast.’

‘E-boats?’

‘No.’ The older Varvara shook his head. ‘Just caiques. Fast caiques. You’ll need to post a look-out.’

He turned to one of his crew, a boy no more than fourteen with ragged trousers and shirt, and pointed to the end of the promontory.