Corporal Cotton's Little War (35 page)

‘What in God’s name happened?’ Kennard asked. ‘We thought we’d lost you.’ He turned and stared round at the charred woodwork, the coloured patches and the damaged wheelhouse. ‘This isn’t
Claudia,’
he said. ‘It’s
Loukia.
Where’s
Claudia?’

‘You might well ask,’ Bisset said, a ragged, bearded Bisset sucking at a fag one of the sailors had tossed down from the destroyer.

‘Where’s Lieutenant Patullo?’

‘Dead, sir,’ Cotton said. ‘With Lieutenant Shaw.’

‘And Commander Samways?’

‘Also dead, sir. Murdered by Greek bandits. We killed the Greeks.’

Kennard stared. ‘Did you, by God?’ he said. He indicated the bandage round Cotton’s head. ‘How about you? You hurt?’

Cotton stiffened. ‘Nothing to’ speak of, sir. We also lost CERA Duff and Private Coward, and Private Howard wounded and a prisoner.’

He began to explain, anxious to get it off his chest and receive the reassurance that there was nothing else he could have done. Kennard gestured. ‘You’d better tell me about it,’ he said. ‘Let’s go into the captain’s cabin.’

‘Sorry, sir.’ Cotton stopped him dead as he turned away. ‘Three kids sleeping in it. It’ll have to be here.’

Standing on the foredeck, he handed over the log and outlined what had happened, in a flat voice, unemotionally, leaving nothing out and adding no frills. When he’d finished, Kennard blinked.

‘And the money?’

‘Below, sir. The kids are lying on it.’

‘And this boat?’

‘It’s a bit of
Claudia
and a bit of
Loukia.’
Cotton’s mouth twitched. ‘I reckon she ought to be called
Cloukia.’

Kennard gestured. ‘Did you do it all without a slipway?’

‘There wasn’t a slipway, sir.’

Kennard nodded. ‘You did well, Cotton.’

‘We were lucky, sir.’

‘I’ll take the money with me. What about the refugees?’

‘They helped us, sir. It didn’t seem safe to leave ‘em behind. We brought their families with them. Three are women. I think the men would like to join the Greek navy, sir. If there is one.’

‘That’s something we’ve still to find out. We’ll pass ‘em south. It probably won’t be very healthy here before long. We’re getting out of Greece, Cotton. Did you know?’

‘We heard about it, sir.’

‘It’s not going to be easy. We’ve got the Glen ships but we can’t get ‘em into the Piraeus. Bloody place blew up. They hit three ammunition ships --
Clan Fraser, City of Raubaix
and
Goalpara.
They took
Clan Cumming
with ‘em. It was bloody hopeless from the start. There weren’t enough airfields in the forward areas and a complete lack of aerodrome defence weapons, blast pens and even transport. We never got off the ground. We’d no sooner settled in than we started getting out again. Our recce planes tell us there are a hell of a lot of caiques in the Piraeus, and I expect they’ll eventually be heading here or to Canea or the beaches.’

Cotton blinked. ‘That’s another point, sir,’ he said. ‘I think it would be wrong to expect a seaborne invasion.’

Kennard’s head jerked round. ‘What the devil do you know about it?’

Cotton produced Captain Haussmann’s notebook and papers and the torn and bloodstained pay-books and letters they’d taken off the men they’d killed.

‘Where did you get these?’ Kennard asked.

‘Took ‘em off some Germans, sir! Four of ‘em were SS men or Gestapo or something. The notebook belonged to an officer. Bisset - that is, Leading Aircraftman Bisset - speaks German, as you know, sir, and he said they seemed to suggest an airborne invasion of Crete.’

‘Airborne?’

‘That’s what he said, sir. The airfields at Maleme, Heraklion and Retimo. I think he was right too, because we got these papers off a lot of paratroopers.’

Kennard stared at the papers and then at Cotton. ‘How, for God’s sake?’

‘We killed ‘em sir.’

‘The paratroopers?’

‘Yes, sir. All of ‘em.’

‘Did you, by God?’

‘We had a bit of help from some Greeks, sir. They were using the guns off
Loukia.’

‘Were they indeed? Well, at least we’ve started something that looks like resistance.’

‘Yes, sir. We also sank one German caique - probably two -both full of troops -- as well as a German armed launch.’ Cotton couldn’t resist a last prideful comment. ‘She had what looked like a four-pounder on the stern.’

Kennard stared. ‘Good God, Cotton,’ he said, ‘don’t sound so bloody modest! You seem to have taken on the whole German garrison of Aeos - and beaten ‘em too!’

Cotton didn’t think it very odd. After all, that was what the Marines were for, and since Kennard had come up at his briefing with a quote from Kipling’s poem about Joeys - one that Cotton had known almost since the day he’d put on his first pair of ammunition boots -- he thought that, now that the thing was over and done with, he might toss it back at him.

‘An’ ‘e sweats like a Jolly,’
he quoted humourlessly.  ‘
‘Er Majesty’s Jolly -- soldier and sailor too! For there isn’t a job on the top o’ the earth the beggar don’t know, nor do.’

Kennard’s eyebrows had shot up and his mouth widened in a grin. ‘There’s a bloody sight more to you than meets the eye, Cotton,’ he observed.

‘Yes, sir,’ Cotton agreed placidly. ‘They’re red-hot on that sort of thing in the Marines.’

‘We might even get you a gong for this.’

Cotton coughed. ‘I’m not much bothered about a gong, sir,’ he said. ‘There is one thing, though.’

‘Go on.’

‘I sort of promised these Greeks we’d look after their families. I’d be glad if you’d fix it with the padre, sir.’

Kennard looked up under the peak of his cap. ‘Where do they want to go?’ he asked.

‘I don’t rightly know, yet, sir. Except for one. She wants to go to England. That is,
I
want her to go to England.’

‘You do?’ Kennard gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘It’s not all that easy. Has she got somewhere to go?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Where?’

‘My ma would take care of her.’

‘Some relation?’

‘Yes, sir. My ma was Greek. You’ll remember there was some mention of it at the briefing. It wasn’t something I liked shouting about the ship, sir. People get to thinking you’re a Maltese or a Cypriot and
they’ve
always stewards or canteen managers. That’s how I came to speak Greek, you’ll remember. It turned out very useful, sir.’

‘I’m sure it did. And this woman?’

‘Girl, sir. She’s not all that old?’

‘What relationship is she?’

‘Cousin, sir,’ Cotton said stoutly, staring the commander unflinchingly in the eye.

‘Is she now? It was a fortunate coincidence you found her, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Cotton said. ‘Very fortunate. But, then, I might have guessed. You know what these Mediterranean lot are like. Breed like rabbits.’

‘I hope
you
don’t, Cotton,’ Kennard said. ‘I don’t think I’d like to meet a regiment of Cottons. Very well, I’ll have a word with the padre. Under the circumstances, it’s the least we can do. In the meantime I’d better get over to headquarters because I’ve heard there are only fifty ack-ack guns on the island and thirty-odd obsolescent fighters. You’ll all be questioned by Intelligence, of course, and be expected to pass on everything to the admiral. To the army commander in charge here, too, for that matter. It looks like being Freyberg. Will that bother you?’

‘No, sir.’

Kennard looked at Cotton’s solid bulk and unemotional face. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I shouldn’t think it would.’

As Kennard departed, Varvara and his family appeared on deck. Annoula was with them. She seemed strained and exhausted and she looked at Cotton with a worried expression. He marched straight up to her and, taking her arm, drew her aside.

‘It’ll be all right,’ he announced. ‘You’ll be able to go to Egypt. They’ll look after you.’

She looked at him sadly. ‘I have nobody in Egypt.’

‘You have me.’

She gave him an unhappy look. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Egypt isn’t your country.’

‘It is at the moment. Alexandria’s our base. Or it will be when they chuck us out of here.’

‘But after that?’

It seemed to present no problem to Cotton. ‘You can go to England. They send wives and kids home via the Cape.’

‘I have nowhere to go in England.’

‘I can give you an address.
My
address.’ He wondered what his mother would say when she turned up. Probably fall on her neck and burst into tears of joy.

She shook her head. ‘Not now. Not after - not after what they did to me.’

Cotton frowned. ‘What bloody difference does that make?’ he snorted.

‘Nobody would want me after that.’

‘I’d have you.’

Cotton frowned as he spoke. He’d done it now, he decided. Here he was, in spite of everything he’d ever thought, bloody well opting for the one thing he’d always fought shy of - a Greek wife, Greek relations and Greek kids yelling in a foreign lingo and having their teeth knocked out by the other kids in the street because they were wops. Perhaps it’d be easier not to take his discharge in a hurry after the war. After all, there were Maltese wives in the navy and nobody minded them, and it would give everybody time to settle down a bit. And perhaps the kids would be lucky enough to turn out as big as he was.

Annoula was looking up at him, her eyes filling with tears. To her Cotton represented security such as she’d forgotten existed. ‘You are a good man, Cotton,’ she said.

‘No, I’m not,’ he said bluntly. ‘My parents were Greek and, because it was sometimes uncomfortable having Greek parents in London, I ran away and joined the Marines. I even pretended I wasn’t Greek and never wrote to them much. I expect I’ll have to change if you’re there.’

‘Perhaps they won’t want me.’

‘I think they will. I think my ma will fall over herself to get you in the house. I’ll write and tell ‘em you’re coming.’

She stared up at him, moisture sparkling on her lashes, and her face split in a smile that was trusting, happy, relieved and joyful all at the same time. Cotton’s stolid heart thumped as he realized how beautiful she could be when she tried. Then her face became grave again, meek almost, and dutiful.

‘Very well, Cotton,’ she said.

Jesus, he thought - and oddly enough for the first time it didn’t shock him - she sounds like Ma.

Epilogue

On 28 April 1941, only a few days after
Loukia’s
return, confirmation of Corporal Cotton’s opinion came when Winston Churchill signalled to General Wavell in North Africa to suggest that an airborne attack on Crete should be expected.

‘It seems clear from our information,’ he said, ‘that a heavy airborne attack by German troops and bombers will soon be made on Crete. ... It ought to be a fine opportunity for killing the parachute troops.’

Churchill’s view was not an unreasonable one but unfortunately the garrison was far from sufficiently equipped to meet the attack, which came on 20 May. The first parachutists and the first airborne troops in gliders were killed almost to a man, but more arrived and their final capture of Maleme airfield was the turning point of the struggle. A German attempt to follow up with caiques from Milos, however, met with disaster. Four British cruisers -one of them
Caernarvon
- and four destroyers got among them, as
Loukia
had off Cape Kastamanitsa, and sank almost every one by gunfire or ramming, including the Italian destroyer which was escorting them. A second convoy was attacked on the same day and the Germans made no further attempt.

Because the attack on Crete had been expected, it cost the Germans one-third of their airborne invaders -- 12,000 to 17,000 men -- together with 170 troop-carrying aircraft. Never again did they risk their air division troops in so hazardous an operation. Their commanders had grown older and more cautious overnight because the cost of victory had proved too high, and in the end Hitler turned his parachute regiments into infantry. Although the British were thrown out of Crete, they had blunted one of Hitler’s most effective weapons, and it has always been believed that Crete delayed Hitler’s attack on Russia so long he was just too late to capture Moscow before the Russian winter set in. The following year the German decline began.

As for Cotton and Annoula Akoumianakis,
their
story perhaps supplied the happy ending that was not immediately obvious in Crete. After an exhausting journey through a variety of refugee camps in the Middle East and South Africa, Annoula finally reached London the following year, when, as Cotton had suspected, she was swept delightedly into the Cotonou home. Being Greek, she was literally held captive by Cotton’s mother until Cotton himself, wearing three stripes and a DSM for what he’d done on Aeos, returned from the Middle East to enjoy survivor’s leave after
Caernarvon
had been sunk by a German torpedo.

He remained in England as an instructor until the time came for the British to return to the Greek islands in 1944. Rather to his surprise he was commissioned because of his ability to speak Greek. He even managed to pick up an MC - ironically enough for leading the attack on Kalani when Aeos was reoccupied. A little startled by his unexpected success, he remained in the Marines until 1955, when - still considered to be a bit regimental - he retired as a captain. For a year or two he did various jobs. Then, in 1960 when the tourist boom got going, Bisset, whose languages had landed him a job with one of the larger British travel firms, got in touch with him and he found himself appointed as Greek representative with a base in Athens. So that, in the end, accepting his Greek origins with far less trouble than he had ever expected, he got the best of both worlds.