The Angry Hills (12 page)

It was as though Greece was being put to the test during the ages for conceiving the ideal of freedom. The brief eras of peace and plenty were but interludes in the everlasting trial by fire. But anyone who has seen a man dance the
calamatiano
would surely know, as did Mike Morrison, that Greece would be free again.

The presence of British escapees in Paleachora became an open secret. Food supplies were running low in the big cities and every train to Dadi, the nearest terminal, brought city people scouring the countryside in search of food. They carried possessions, many of great value, to trade for wheat and other staples.

Christos and the other farmers were quick to capitalize on this tragic situation. Wheat went at fabulous price. When inflation made money almost worthless, barter became the means of exchange. Christos, as owner of the mill, hit upon a windfall. In return for wheat and other food products, he acquired possession of a half dozen properties in Athens.

Mike argued bitterly against this, but Christos reckoned he was doing the city folk a favor by keeping them alive. He added that the city people had always considered the farmer a second-class citizen and had cheated him for years.

As the presence of escapees in Paleachora became known, “big-town girls” from Dadi drifted to the village in search of fun with the British, whom they admired enormously. The city girls were not a bit shy. They had cast aside the age-old traditions of female inferiority and took pleasure in flaunting their equality before the farmers. The shocked villagers warned the British boys that they were all tramps with venereal diseases or German spies or both. Mike seemed to agree with the latter explanation and kept clear of all outsiders.

Within a few weeks after the British collapse in Greece, hundreds of escapees roved all over the country and were accepted by the people with open arms. Even in the cities the people were sharing the last loaf of bread with escapees.

This situation became a major headache for the Germans. Even in their position of helplessness, the British gave hope to the people by their mere presence. Vicious counter measures were taken. Spies were planted, bribes were offered, traps set, threats were made. The Germans began using British turncoats as bait. Then came the announcement that any village found harboring an escapee would be burned to the ground. Still the British escaped and still the people took them in.

It all added up to one thing for Mike. His fool’s paradise was truly a fool’s paradise. Sooner or later some child would talk to one of the Italian “tourists” or one of the big-city girls. He had to break Christos down and make his move immediately.

Although the feeling in Paleachora was overwhelmingly pro-British and, even more strongly, pro-American, the effects of the occupation hit them fast. Taxation, a portion of the crops, and now their very homes were in jeopardy. The weaker ones buckled under the pressure and thought it best to keep the escapees moving. For even with the new tax the price of wheat was bringing them rewards never known before.

The majority favored resistance and believed it a sacred duty to shelter escapees. Other men vowed to burn their wheat fields before giving the Germans a kernel of grain.

But Paleachora was getting tense. Mike no longer enjoyed the visits to the coffee house. The arguments raged far into the night. Then, one day, suspicion and whispers supplanted song and dance when a nearby village was burned to the ground. Several families were suspected of having turned collaborators.

“We have found him,” said Zervos’ voice over the telephone.

Konrad Heilser bolted upright in bed. “Where are you?”

“Dadi.”

“Are you certain?”

“I am positive,” Zervos answered.

“Have any of our people actually seen him?”

“No, but I have a peasant here who informs for us. He speaks of a British escapee who talks like an American. His description of Morrison is perfect. Even to the degree that Morrison arrived by boat and was injured in a jump from a prison train.”

Heilser’s heart raced as he threw off the covers and told his new woman to go back to sleep. He began unbuttoning his pajamas as he spoke into the phone.

“Where is he?”

“A village named Paleachora—northern end of the province. I wanted to check with you before taking a squad of soldiers to pick him up.”

“No, wait a minute. A squad of men may be too small.”

“I don’t understand,” Zervos said.

“I have a half dozen reports of villagers making armed resistance. We better not go in undermanned.”

“What shall I do then?”

“How many troops will we need to cut off the village?”

“Two or three hundred,” Zervos answered.

“Do nothing. I leave for Dadi this minute. We will organize a raid to hit this village in the middle of the night tomorrow.”

Christos’ bald head and waxed mustache shone in the candlelight. He held his hands to his heart.

“Jay, as I love you like a son, you should not leave.”

“Be sensible, Christos. Another day—another two days—the Germans will burn Paleachora to the ground.”

Christos spat on the floor and issued an oath against the Germans, then crossed himself. “Even if you are gone we will never turn our backs on the Englezos.... No! I will not let you leave!”

Despite Christos’ shady dealings, he was a Greek to the core.

“I have this money—five million drachmas—take it,” Mike said.

“You have insulted me. Do you think that all Christos cares for is money? You, Jay, are my friend.”

“All right, then, I go alone.”

Christos grumbled under his breath. “Five million drachmas—fifty million drachmas. You would think all Christos wants is money. If I had all the money I could carry in my boat, I could not buy a bag of wheat with it. I would give you my boat but it isn’t fit to cross the sea. Besides, within one hour a patrol ship would find you.... Besides, I do not know the lanes over the mine fields.... Besides...”

“I’m not asking you to take me to North Africa. I only want to get to Athens—immediately.”

Christos fiddled with his glass of
krasi
for a moment then lit his huge bowler pipe. He stared at Mike calmly and spoke without the usual breast thumpings.

“My niece, Eleftheria, is a nice healthy girl, no?”

Mike grinned to himself. Now, at last, Christos would play out his hand. He agreed that Eleftheria was as healthy as a horse.

“You know, Jay, it is a custom in our country for a suitor to come to the father with a ring and the two to enter into a contract. I speak to you as her guardian. I have a plot of land in Dernica, very, very fine land, where my aged mother lives. I have a sizeable dowry for Eleftheria. You do speak Greek very well for the short time you have been here. If you were to return as her husband...”

Mike shook his head. “I am married and I have two children.”

Christos arose and clasped his hands behind him. He looked like a little puppet pacing back and forth in his
fustanella.
He stopped and sighed.

“Jay, my good friend, I tell you something. From the minute I take you on my boat in Nauplion, I say to myself, here is a man. Here is a man who is something. I am now rich, although you may not agree with things I do. But every man wants this. He wants this for his son. Melpo has not given me a son. Jay, I would like very much...”

Mike arose and walked from the cottage through Melpo’s garden and onto the dirt street. He could see Christos standing in the doorway in his ballerina dress looking after him. Paleachora was asleep now—a restless and troubled sleep, disturbed by the problems of war.

Mike walked to the hill past the Church of the Prophet Elias and sat beneath a cypress tree and looked at the land by moonlight.

Many men follow a rainbow. But Mike Morrison had met it head on. Here was the sanctuary from reality that men dreamed of.

But he was filled with love as he thought of the hills of San Francisco. And he thought of the fog as it rolled in lazily or tore in angrily through the Golden Gate. He loved the redwood trees of Muir Woods stretching toward the heavens and he loved to watch the surf smash against the rocks below Land’s End. But this love had always been a brooding, morbid love which seemed to turn to bitterness in the pages he wrote.

Greece had unlocked an inner door to a love of people that he had never been able to feel before.

For many reasons Mike wanted to return to Christos and say, “Yes, I’ll stay. I will go to Dernica with Eleftheria and till the land and dance the
syrtos
and drink
ouzo
in the coffee house and I’ll learn to sing as I come from the fields.”

He began to laugh at himself, rather ashamed that he had been taken in by such a bad plot.

Christos sat at the table as he entered the cottage. Mike sat beside him and poured a glass of wine. They heard Melpo snore from the next room.

“I don’t love her,” Mike said.

“Bah! What are you talking about? For why you need love? She will have your children, she will make cloth for you, she will scrub your feet. Why you need love? You Englezos are all crazy! Do you want your women to be like—like those tramps from Dadi?”

Mike shook his head. Christos knew further argument was useless. With a look of hurt and sadness, he slammed his glass down. He sighed and started from the room. “Very well, very well. We sail for Athens at sunrise tomorrow.”

FIVE

“J
AY!
W
AKE UP!”

Mike rolled over and propped himself on an elbow. Christos, in long nightshirt and cap, with a candle in hand, stood over the bed. The candle quivered in his hand and his face was as waxen in color as his mustache.

“Eh—what’s up?” Mike mumbled, half-asleep.

“A signal from the next village. German soldiers all over the area. They’re heading for Paleachora.”

Mike threw off the covers.

“Go to the church quickly!” Christos said.

Mike struggled into his clothes, checked his pistols and bolted through the door and crept close in the shadows of the cottages until he worked his way toward the knoll. He sprinted up the dirt path and through the door of the Church of the Prophet Elias.

Bluey was already there with three other escapees. They were half-dressed and crouched near the windows, shivering in the night air. Bluey’s fists clenched a long rifle.

The five of them huddled together, worried by the sounds of their own breathing and Bluey’s belching.

It became deathly quiet.

“I say we break for it now,” Bluey whispered.

“Stay put,” Mike ordered. “They may be waiting for us.”

They looked at each other in puzzlement. “Do what you damned please,” Mike said, “I’m riding it out.”

He sank into a sitting position with his back against the wall and rubbed his eyes. The empty church looked eerie in the flickering light of the candles burning at the altar at the opposite end.

Bluey grabbed Mike’s shoulders and pointed out of the window. Mike’s heart pounded as he heard dim, angry guttural commands drift up from the village. It was pitch-black, impossible to see anything—only the sounds...

Drowsy Greek voices—some angry—some filled with fear—more curt commands in German...

“They must be roundin’ up everyone,” Bluey whispered, trying hard to suppress his nervous burps.

Sounds of motors, trucks rolling into the village. A rifle shot! Angry Greek voices! More rifle shots! The loud wailing of a woman. Mike could swear it was Melpo.

Silence.

Truck motors—one by one—moving away from the village. Motor sounds drifting into silence. No more sounds of Greek voices—only German voices.

An infinitesimal sound caught the ears of the five men. Mike’s pistol came from his belt as he squinted desperately into the darkness.

A form—a shadow outside... Mike pointed and Bluey nodded in agreement as he lowered his rifle.

The shadow moved unevenly up the path toward the church. Bluey’s face was wet with sweat.

Footsteps—slow—half-staggering. The shadow grew larger and larger. The shadow caromed through the window and over the walls of the church. Mike raised his pistol.

The shadow snapped from sight. The five men cowered against the wall, their weapons turned on the door. It burst open.

“Eleftheria!”

She stood there gasping, dressed only in a skirt and blouse thrown on hastily. Mike saw her face by the candlelight—twisted in terror. She was unable to speak.

“Christos,” he said. He tore the rifle from Bluey’s hands and ran for the door. The four other men pounced on him and wrestled him to the floor.

“You bloody fool! You’ll give us all away!”

Mike’s grasp on the rifle loosened. He gritted his teeth and beat his fist on the wall, then half-staggered to a bench and slumped onto it.

A gush of wind whipped through the church and the flames at the altar danced crazily and lashed weird shadows over the walls.

He looked up at Eleftheria. Her eyes were those of a crazy woman’s. She slid along the wall toward the door. Mike sprang from the bench and grabbed her arm. She screamed hysterically and sunk her teeth into his hand.

German boots coming up the path!

Mike shook her. She opened her mouth to shriek and struggle free. His fist lashed out and thudded against the side of her face. She slumped unconscious into his arms.

“Split up and get out of here!” Mike commanded.

He threw the girl over his shoulder and ran the length of the church toward a small window beside the altar. He pushed Eleftheria through and crawled after.

A thundering crash of a rifle butt against the church door!

Mike lifted the girl into his arms and staggered up the path toward the woods.... Three hundred yards... He ducked behind the first row of trees and sank to his knees and lowered Eleftheria to the ground. He rubbed the numbness from his arms and fought for breath.

A voice shattered the air. “You bloody Huns! You’ll never get Bluey alive!”

A chatter of guns and the voice was still.

Eleftheria stirred on the ground. Her huge eyes snapped open. Mike’s hand clamped over her mouth. She shook violently. Mike dragged her to her feet and pulled her through the forest away from the advancing sounds of boots.