Read the book: «Jackals’ Revenge»
IAIN GALE
Jackals’ Revenge
Dedication
To Patrick Barty
and
the people of Crete
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Historical Note
By the same author
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Dawn rose over the pass of Thermopylae as it had since the beginning of time. As it had on that day 2,000 years ago, when Leonidas’ Spartans had died to the last man holding this great natural strongpoint against the invading Persian hordes. This morning, though, something was different, for with the dawn came a new sound on the air, drowning out the bees and the birdsong and shattering the peace of an Attic morning. It was a high-pitched whine, descending earthwards out of the sky. The sound of modern war. The clarion call of a new and terrible barbarism which had laid claim to the civilised world.
Captain Peter Lamb heard the sound and looked up in alarm. He knew it only too well. Had become familiar with it in the fields and on the roads of France less than a year ago, and it made his blood run cold. Without a second glance he yelled across the pass to where his men were sitting pulling through their guns. They had been on stand-to all night, waiting for the German attack that was sure to come. Their faces were drawn with exhaustion, but for all their fatigue they had already heard the sound. The younger men, the new recruits and replacements, were still looking skywards, not certain what they heard, although it was not new to them. The old hands, though, were already on their feet as the words left Lamb’s lips.
‘Stukas. Take cover.’
The first bombs fell seconds later as the whine of the sirens fixed beneath the wings of the hated aircraft reached its crescendo. The men cowered in their funk holes and in any space they could find in the unforgiving rocky landscape, their hands over their ears and their tin hats, their mouths open to lessen the shock of the blast, their bodies tucked up into tight balls. As the bombs hit, their hammer-blow explosions dug deep into the baked white rock, sending lethal shards in all directions, and the men, even though they had not been hit, mouthed their oaths. They shut their eyes tight and two of the younger ones tried to push themselves into gaps in the rocks.
Tucked into his own tiny slit-trench, Company Sergeant-Major Jim Bennett saw them and ran across to them at a crouch, before speaking through the din, hard into their faces. ‘Now then, Dawlish, Carter, you don’t want the captain to see you hiding like that, do you?’
‘No, Sergeant-Major.’
‘No, Sergeant-Major. I should bloody well think not. Now bloody well brace yourselves and look like soldiers. They’ll be gone soon enough.’
Bennett swore quietly. It was bravado, of course. But sometimes, he thought, keeping up morale was more like being a wet-nurse. He thought of the old platoon, of the men they had left behind in the fields of France last year and the few they had led out and who were still with them, and he wished for the impossible. Bennett knew they would just have to make do with what they had. But he had confidence in Lamb. If any officer could lick them into shape he knew it would be his. Hadn’t most of them already come through Egypt together? He knew that some of them at least had the makings of good soldiers. Still, though, he longed for his fallen friends and prayed that these new lads would prove themselves capable of avenging them.
Bennett had been right about the raid. Within minutes it was over. Two bombs each, and that was it for the six-plane squadron. The dive-bombers veered away like hawks up into the azure sky and the men crawled out from their holes into the dusty air of the balmy April morning, coughing and cursing.
Lamb and his men, C Company, the North Kents, or the Black Jackals as they were known to the army, had been given simple orders. ‘Hold the pass. Do not allow the enemy through.’
His CO, Colonel George de Russet, had made it plain enough to them at the last Order Group. ‘Gentlemen, here we are and here we bloody well stay.’
Lamb knew that the Stukas had only been a taster and prepared himself for what he knew was to come. This would be as hard a battle as he had yet fought, and perhaps his last.
He shouted across to Bennett: ‘Sarnt-Major. Any casualties?’
‘Two, sir. One’s a goner. Spencer.’
Poor bugger, thought Lamb. He’s the first then. How many more today? He turned towards the young lieutenant in command of Number 1 platoon, Charles Eadie. ‘Charles, see if you can make those slit-trenches any deeper. This rock’s bloody stuff but we’ll have to do better than that before their big guns open up or we’ll all be goners.’
As the lieutenant scuttled away across the rocks, Lamb considered their position. He had led eighty men into Greece just under a month ago. Now he commanded something over half that number. They were still in their three platoons and of the three junior officers he had lost only one, the young lieutenant of Number 3 platoon, who had been replaced with a transfer from Battalion HQ. There were now forty-eight men plus himself. And, whatever their orders, whatever position they were told to hold, it was now his ultimate task to get them away and back to Alexandria. Two days ago the Greeks had surrendered, and now the British and Commonwealth troops who had been sent to defend them were on their own.
Lamb’s immediate orders were to cover the withdrawal of the New Zealand 6th Division. So now here they sat, the Jackals, in the pass of Thermopylae. The bloody rearguard. Again.
The Greek campaign had been a hard schooling, and of the casualties in his company two were now in hospital in Athens with nervous exhaustion, their minds as shattered as the bodies of those who had died. In a previous war – his father’s war – they would have been shot as cowards. Now Lamb thanked God, at least they were only labelled insane. It did not surprise him. Although they had seen action in Egypt, they had only caught the last of the fighting in Cyrenaica before the Italian surrender in February. Greece had been very different. They had seen and felt the full might of the German war machine. Worst of all, the Germans held the skies. There seemed to be no end of their planes. Surely they would just bomb Greece into submission?
Eadie was back with him now. ‘I’ve got all the platoon sergeants on the case, sir. I’ve told them to get the men to dig down another foot.’
‘They’ll be lucky if they manage six inches.’
Charles Eadie was a curious-looking man, with a large head sitting on huge, broad shoulders and a naturally nut-brown complexion which suggested that at some point one of his ancestors might have been born the wrong side of the counterpane, as his mother would have put it. His movements too seemed awkward, but strangely he managed to be quite dexterous and was always perfectly turned out, even now in this dustbowl. His green eyes shone like emeralds from the dark skin and as usual he was wearing a smile, but it did not disguise his nervousness.
After a few moments he spoke. ‘We can’t really hold them here, sir, can we?’
‘No, Charles. I don’t think we can. But we can try, can’t we?’
There was a pause. ‘D’you think we’ll make it out of here, sir?’
‘I would say we had a fighting chance. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Of course, sir. We’re the Jackals, after all. And it’s a pretty good position.’
‘Yes, pretty good.’ Lamb smiled. ‘Although it didn’t do the Spartans much good.’
‘Sir?’
‘Thermopylae, Eadie. Where are your Classics?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t very good at Classics, sir. I was more of a mathematician at school. But I do know that there was a battle here before. In history.’
Lamb nodded. ‘And we, Charles, are standing in the footsteps of heroes.’
The man who had been standing to their right, a sergeant, now spoke and Lamb realised unsettlingly that he had been there all the time. He had a curious accent, clipped and cultured, yet somehow not of the establishment, as if behind everything he said there might be an element of sarcasm. ‘Actually, sir, there have been six battles here. The Spartans, of course, the famous one against the Persians in 480 bc, but then there was another in 353 bc, one in 279 bc when the Gauls attacked, then the Romans came here in 190 bc, and then they themselves were attacked by the German tribes in ad 267, and then of course there was the Greek revolution in 1821. Byron and all that.’
Lamb shook his head. ‘Is there any end to your knowledge, Valentine?’
The sergeant shrugged. ‘Couldn’t say, sir. I was just praying that we’d get out of here alive. And that we aren’t captured.’
‘I share your sentiments.’
‘But I really do mean it, sir. You know that when the Greek revolutionary hero Diakos was captured here by the Turks in 1821 they impaled him and roasted him alive on a spit.’
Eadie blanched. Lamb laughed. ‘Valentine, I hardly think that the Germans will do that if they capture us, do you?’
Valentine shrugged and smiled. ‘Who knows, sir. Anything can happen in this war. Permission to brew up, sir.’
Lamb nodded, and as Valentine wandered off he shook his head and wondered to what god or gods that conundrum of a man had been making his prayers.
They had been through France together, and Valentine had saved Lamb’s life. Twice. They had come through the chaos of the Dunkirk retreat and had made it back home. But they had also witnessed atrocities in France and he knew that similar massacres were already happening in Greece. But roasted alive? He hardly thought so. Not even the Nazis.
Lamb sat on a rock, took the map from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Above him on a high rock a goat moved, loosening stones and jangling up the hill pursued by a small boy who was shouting something in Greek. Life goes on, he thought. For a while at least. He wondered what lay in store for the Greeks once they too had fallen under the Nazi boot. The same fate as France? Stories had come out that in that country where he had fought so recently the population was being systematically brutalised.
He had brought out a French girl, Madeleine, and he thanked God that he had. They had become very close. Lovers. But he had left her back in London when the battalion had shipped out to Egypt with 1st Armoured Brigade in January and he wondered how far she had got with her efforts to join the Free French army that had formed in London under de Gaulle. He had no love for the man, not after what had happened to the Highlanders temporarily under his command on the Somme last year. But they said that his presence now as the leader of the Free French in London had given his countrymen fresh hope, and that, Lamb knew, was what really mattered.
He was not sure, though, what hope there was for him and Madeleine. Although he had written to her several times, he had received only one letter from her since Egypt and that of course had been censored. He wondered if he would ever see her again. It seemed to him at this moment that he would either die here or be taken prisoner and he wondered how long the war might last. Hitler must be stopped, of course. But now Britain stood entirely alone against the might of the Nazis.
He looked over at his men as they recovered from the air attack, lighting up cigarettes and making tea. They were new faces, most of them, and a precious few of the die-hards of his old platoon that he had brought out of France. Apart from Valentine and Bennett there was Private Smart, his batman and the newly promoted signals operator at Company HQ. He watched as Corporal Mays, now made up to sergeant of Number 2 platoon, cadged a Woodbine from one of the new intake, and looked across at the group of Butterworth, Hughes, Perkins and Wilkinson, corporals now, all of them. Stubbs, the heavy weapons expert, was a corporal too and had been given command of the company mortars. And Private Hale, who had been wounded at the Dyle and whom they had all given up for dead or captured, had miraculously appeared again at the depot at Tonbridge and now he too had a stripe.
Lamb counted himself particularly lucky to have managed to hold on to Jim Bennett. The army had wanted the tough cockney sergeant as a drill instructor for officer training. But Lamb had insisted and, although the Sergeant-Major didn’t know it, he had made it a condition of accepting his own promotion to captain and the company that went with it that Bennett should stay with him. A little string-pulling had done it. But then what were connections for, if not for that? He and Bennett knew each other in the way that only a junior officer and his sergeant can. They were a close team, each reading the other’s thoughts at any crucial moment. He could not afford to lose him. And he knew too that while Bennett might be one of the bravest men he had ever met, at present his mind was filled with more than the battle that lay ahead. Bennett had left a young wife back at home in London and she was due to give birth in seven weeks. And they had all heard what was happening to London. He cursed the Luftwaffe and reminded himself to keep a close watch on the Sergeant-Major.
The power of his connections in the higher echelons of the army had taken Lamb a little by surprise. He knew that he had managed to turn a few heads on the Staff and raise a few eyebrows with his unorthodox behaviour in France. But his promotion had been faster than he might have supposed. It had been suggested to him that he might be interested in joining a new unit, as yet unnamed, that was forming in Scotland. Some sort of elite force drawn from various regiments. Lamb had refused. He was an infantry officer, as loyal to his regiment as he was to King and country. He loved the Jackals. They were his home. And he wasn’t sure either about his exact views on an ‘elite unit’.
He also wondered whether the regiment hadn’t been chosen for the Greek expeditionary force on account of his belonging to it. Lamb had glimpsed the signature on the battalion’s movement order and recognised it as that of a certain colonel on the staff whom he knew to be keeping an eye on him. The same man had earlier suggested joining the new unit. The posting had certainly puzzled the battalion CO. ‘Greece? Us? With the tanks?’ de Russet had said. ‘Good grief! Flattered, of course. Honoured. The Jackals are always spoiling for a fight.’
He was wondering how long the war might last, when Britain might defeat Germany, when around the edge of the gully came a British major wearing red tabs on his collar. He was escorted by two armed riflemen.
The staff officer saw Lamb and smiled. ‘You the Jackals?’
‘Yes. The rearguard. C Company. Captain Lamb.’
‘Well, you’re to fall back. The rest of your battalion’s doing the same. Making for the Peloponnese. We’re all pulling out. Your battalion transports are in a field to the west of the village. Take the Brallos pass. Head south. You’d better be quick about it, Jerry’s almost here.’
‘Sorry, sir. I was told we were holding the pass.’
‘Well, you’re not holding it any more, Captain, are you? We’re leaving it to the Anzacs. This is their party now.’ He frowned. ‘You don’t actually mean you want to stay?’
Lamb shrugged. ‘Well, I want to do what’s right, sir. At least we’ll do what we’re ordered to, sir. I thought we might hold them up for a few hours.’
‘Or get blown to pieces in the process, Captain. Come on. Ten minutes. That’s all.’ And with that he was gone.
Lamb turned to Bennett. ‘I don’t believe it, Sarnt-Major. Do you?’
‘Just like in France, sir, if you ask me. No one knows what the blazes is going on. Not ours to question, though, sir. Eh? We’ll leave it to the Kiwis.’
‘Yes, you’re right, Bennett. It’s just that I can’t help feeling as if we’ve been given a last-minute reprieve. And desperately sorry for those poor bastards in the pass.’
Bennett was right, he thought. It was just like France. There too they had been told to pull out after having first been ordered to hold on. There, though, Lamb had disobeyed the order and it had damn near killed him. The wound in his back still gave him the occasional pain. This time he would do as he was told. This was no time for heroics. Not yet. He wondered, though, when the army would really stop retreating. They had won a victory in Egypt against the Italians, but it seemed that wherever they met the Germans in battle it was the British who did the running. They looked down into the pass towards where the New Zealanders had their forward positions.
‘They’re damn good fighters, sir. They’ll hold Jerry up for a while.’
Lamb nodded his head. ‘Yes, Sarnt-Major. I’m sure they will. We’d better get moving if we’re going. Get the chaps together, will you. We’ve only got ten minutes.’
There was a whine from north of the pass followed by a huge explosion.
Lamb stared at the rising cloud of dust. ‘Christ, those are 88s. Come on.’
The promised transports laid on for their withdrawal were a motley collection. According to the major, the Battalion HQ, along with A and B Companies, had gone on ahead, leaving Lamb with the last pickings. They amounted to two 3-ton trucks, a Bren carrier and a couple of fuel bowsers. Somehow, though, they managed to cram themselves in with all their equipment, and at last, with more rounds from the German anti-tank guns crashing into the emplacements behind them around the pass, they set off south west. Lamb took the lone carrier in front, and led the way along the road away from Thermopylae.
Their path was surprisingly clear. They rattled along through the morning heat, the distinctive scent of thyme and the baking, parched earth rising from the countryside. From time to time they passed evidence of German air attack: a shot-up vehicle or a peasant cart and the bodies of a horse or a team of oxen. They drove on for two hours, climbing steadily until the poplar-clad mountains enveloped them on both sides. The lower slopes of the hills, where the trees had been taken, were dotted with scrub. Beyond this was thick foliage: oaks and beeches and, as Lamb remarked to Bennett, pear trees. Ahead of them they could see the dust from the column, and occasionally, where the road took a twist and doubled back on itself, they saw their comrades below them, in a long trail of carriers and trucks.
Near the village of Brallos, through the pass that guarded the left flank of the Allied army, the countryside opened out and they found themselves on a high plain looking across to a vast mountain range. It was breathtakingly beautiful. They passed into a lush valley dotted with red-roofed farms and olive groves. But now Lamb began to worry, for apart from a few old men playing cards outside a bar, a few villages back, they had not seen any people. Not one.
On the outskirts of the little town of Levadia they turned a corner and came to an abrupt halt behind a cart. It was moving, but only just, and was piled high with belongings – a chest of drawers balanced on a table sat next to battered leather suitcases and two gilt-framed pictures. Perched amid and on top of the whole pile was an old crone dressed in black from head to foot. She was sitting facing them, travelling backwards, rocking back and forth and wailing quietly. Beyond the cart lay what looked to Lamb like an endless line of other carts and trucks of all descriptions. There were donkeys, too, and a horde of civilians. He swore. ‘Damn. This is what I feared. Those villages back there were much too quiet. This is why. They’ve heard the Germans are coming and they’re not staying to welcome them.’
Smart spoke. ‘Perhaps it’s just a bottleneck, sir. Maybe someone’ll pull the plug.’
‘Maybe, Smart.’
But ten minutes later they came to a halt and ten minutes after that they had still not moved. Lamb spoke to his runner, Bill Turner, seated behind him in the carrier, who had been chosen for the post as the fastest man in the company. ‘Turner, go ahead and see what’s going on.’
Five minutes later the man returned, breathless. ‘It’s a real jam up ahead, sir. Trucks and carts and all sorts.’
‘No idea what’s causing it?’
‘Could be anything, sir. Just goes on for about a mile. I didn’t get to the front. Shall I go back, sir?’
‘No, don’t bother. Any sign of the rest of the battalion?’
‘No, sir. There’s no Brits up there. A few Greek soldiers, but aside from that it’s all civvies.’
‘Damn. This lot must have cut in between us and them at that last junction. Well, there’s no other route and Jerry’s too close on our tail. We’ll just have to get out here and hoof it.’
Lamb looked around at the countryside. It was hard terrain off the road, with steep drops and vineyards and olive groves, which would make the going hard. But how the devil could they get past the mass of humanity on the road? He climbed out of the carrier. ‘I’m going to take a look. Sarnt-Major, Turner, you come with me. The rest of you wait here. Charles, tell the others what’s going on.’
The three of them pushed through the crowd of civilians along the road and Lamb marvelled at their composure. For the most part they passed through the crowd without comment. But soon Lamb became aware of an overwhelming atmosphere of grief. While children wailed and mothers chided, some of the refugees seemed almost catatonic, staring at the ground or away into the distance. Occasionally someone, usually a Greek soldier, would notice the three Englishmen and smile or give a thumbs-up. Civilians were mixed in with the military, and looking at them Lamb thought how war had become a great leveller, possibly more than it had ever been. Over to his left a woman in a fur coat and an ornate hat was stumbling along the road on high heels accompanied by her ageing and still neatly besuited husband. Who was he? he wondered. A lawyer, a doctor? Groups of civilians stayed close together, presumably families and neighbours from the same villages. What had they left behind, and what did they have now? And where were they going? To stay with relatives in the safety of the mountains? He supposed that more than a few of them might not have any idea.
The trail of people and vehicles seemed endless. At last, after what Lamb reckoned might have been the best part of a mile, they found what they had been looking for – a huge truck, old, with peeling black paintwork and of uncertain age and make, was slewed across the road and around it stood a cluster of Greek men of all ages: old men and boys, farm hands and soldiers in filthy and incomplete battledress. The men were talking and gesticulating towards the truck. Lamb had no Greek save the little he had learnt at school and he had quickly discovered how different that was from the local patois. It was clear to anyone, though, that the thing was stuck. He pushed through the men and stared at the truck as a Newmarket trainer might look at a horse, assessing its pedigree, its probable strengths and weaknesses, for one of the traits which marked Lamb out among his fellow officers was his knowledge of mechanics. Before the war, while he had thrown himself into the Territorial Army, his first love had been motors. When not employed as manager of a garage in his home town of Sevenoaks, when not in the drill hall or on manoeuvres, he had spent his evenings tinkering with his beloved BSA. There was little about engines that Lamb did not know or could not work out. He could of course take the easy option. They could take the brake off and push the thing off the road. But he looked around him at the empty, anxious faces and knew that it was not really an option. To destroy this precious means of transport might mean the end of all hope for a good dozen of these people if not more – old women and young children incapable, try as they might, of making it through the mountains to the safety of some hilltop village. The truck was their only chance of salvation.
He walked over to the truck and lifted the bonnet. A man beside him muttered something in Greek and Lamb smiled at him and shrugged. Then, propping open the bonnet, he removed his battledress top, tucked his tie into his shirt and rolled up his shirtsleeves before getting to work.
The Greeks stood staring, fascinated, as this British officer worked away at the engine. After a few minutes Lamb raised his head from inside the bonnet and yelled at Bennett. ‘Sarnt-Major, turn her over, will you.’
Bennett climbed into the cab and, finding the starter, switched it on. There was a deep roar, a thump and a chug and the Greeks gave a cheer. But after three revolutions the noise stopped. Lamb swore and dived back into the oily mess that was the engine.
Half an hour and two further attempts later, despairing, Lamb again raised his head. ‘Right, Bennett. One more time.’ The Sergeant-Major, patient as ever, turned the starter and the machine burst into life. The Greeks, who had not stopped watching, reserved their applause this time, but now the motor continued to turn over and after a few minutes they began to cheer. Lamb emerged from the bonnet wearing a huge grin, his face covered in grime and his hands caked in oil and grease. One of the Greeks offered him a torn sheet and he wiped himself down gratefully. ‘I thought we’d never get it,’ he said to no one in particular. A priest standing close by nodded and smiled at him and several of the men clapped him on the back. ‘Whose truck is it, anyway?’ asked Lamb, gesticulating. But, to judge from the shrugs, no one knew. Perhaps, he thought, the owner had given up and abandoned it. He called to Turner. ‘Get it moving. Get as many on board as it’ll take.’ Returning the handshakes of the Greeks, Lamb smiled and accompanied by Bennett made his way back to the carrier.
‘You know, sir, you could just have ditched it. Pushed it off the edge, like.’
‘Yes. But did you see them? How could I do that? It would have been like a death sentence.’
Bennett nodded and said nothing. He knew that Lamb was haunted by something that had happened in France. A bridge that they had been ordered to demolish with high explosive. A bridge that had been packed not just with the advancing enemy, but with Belgian and French civilians – men, women and children. And he knew that Lamb would never forgive himself and would take any chance to atone.
They reached the carrier. ‘Smart, see if you can raise Battalion on that crystal set. Tell them we’ve been held up. Get their direction, can you.’
While the radio operator began to tinker with the unreliable field wireless, Bennett started up the carrier. Ahead of them the convoy was beginning to move.
After a few miles they reached a junction in the road and were soon caught up in a massive column. While the refugees remained in front, they were no longer the bulk of the column. From a road to their left, the road from Thermopylae by way of the coast, lorries were filtering on to the main highway, filled to bursting with British, Greek and Commonwealth troops. Lamb looked at the men in the trucks. He saw grim, unshaven faces, tattered uniforms, and noticed the shortage of weapons. This is an army in retreat, he thought. The same army, in fact in many cases the same soldiers that he had witnessed pulling back in France almost exactly a year ago. A year that seemed a lifetime away.
It took them another five hours to get to the outskirts of Thebes. Lamb looked down at his watch. It was close to 4 p.m. As they drove on, he looked to either side of the road and saw that they were in a bivouac area, bounded on either side by slit-trenches and laagers of trucks covered in camouflage netting. To the right on a slight rise in the ground stood a lone 25-pounder. Everywhere, in the olive groves that lined the road, men were sitting, shattered by exhaustion. Most of them were asleep, quite oblivious to the cacophony of the column pouring past their billets. He wondered which enlightened officer would have chosen to make camp there. It was not a position that he would have chosen – open, exposed and with little natural cover. He was wondering where they should stop when there was a cry from the roadside. ‘Aircraft. Take cover.’ Instantly, Bennett killed the motor on the carrier and the other drivers followed suit. The men slapped open the tailboards and, jumping down, ran to the sides of the road and threw themselves forward into the foliage, disappearing amid the scrub. Lamb followed them and landed hard on his back, reawakening the pain from the old wound. Sitting up he found himself beside two New Zealanders, their heads buried in their hands. One of them spoke, without bothering to see if he was addressing an officer. ‘Hide yer face, fer Chrissake, mate. The Jerries can spot anything down here.’
Lamb silently ignored the man’s lack of deference, took the advice and pushed his head between his knees. As he did so, he heard the whine of engines in the sky and waited for the bombs.
2
There was nothing at first, just the shrill noise of a single-engined aircraft. Lamb did not dare to look up. Spotter plane, he thought. Then he heard it wheeling away and a few seconds later it was replaced by the deeper drone that he had dreaded. The bombers came in low and dropped their sticks in no particular way on the road. He heard the bombs fall almost rhythmically and thought, There really is no point in worrying. If one of them has my name on it then that’s it. This is war. Random and unforgiving. There was a huge explosion and then another and another as the stick of bombs fell in their orderly row along the road. Another, different explosion told him that one of them had found a target, a truck of some sort. He prayed that there had been no men left inside. They were so powerless here, utterly unable to fight back. Perhaps the politicians had been right after all before the war. Perhaps the battle for the skies was what would win. Hadn’t the Battle of Britain proved that? But from where he was sitting this was an infantry war as well. These rocks, these hills, he knew would never be taken until the Wehrmacht had pushed the last Allied soldier back into the sea. And even then, when the Germans were in Athens, he knew the Greeks would not give up their country. Another stick of bombs crashed through the earth and Lamb, pushing his tin hat down on his head, heard the big New Zealander next to him let out an oath and sensed the man pushing himself into the ground. He thought of Bennett and knew that his thoughts must be going out to his wife as she sat cowering, as they were now, beneath the stairs in the Sergeant-Major’s house in Islington. And just as he waited for the next bombs to fall, Lamb heard the engines fading.
As the planes wheeled away he raised his head and turned to the New Zealanders. ‘Who are you?’
‘20th Battalion, 5th Brigade, sir. We’ve come down from Molos. Never seen anything like it, sir.’
His mate joined in, stony-faced. ‘Hundreds of our lads were killed. Hundreds of them, some in a bayonet charge. We was shelled all morning and as we were pulling out too, shells everywhere. Didn’t even know if we’d get out or not.’
Lamb said nothing but shook his head, hoping that would be enough. He stood up and looked for the company. Called out. ‘Sarnt-Major, Lieutenant Eadie, Mister Whitworth, Mister Sugden. To me. Sarnt-Major, casualty report.’
‘Sir.’
‘Gentlemen, I think that we had better get on before Jerry makes the road impassable. Get your men together and mount up. We leave in ten, casualties notwithstanding.’ He turned away and raised his voice. ‘Sarnt-Major, casualties?’
‘None, sir. It’s a bloody miracle.’
‘Well, saddle up then. Ten minutes.’
Leaving the New Zealanders to manage as best they could down the pot-holed road, they carried on. Thebes itself was deserted. The German bombers had done their work here. It was hard for the untutored eye to tell what was an ancient ruin and what more recent damage. Through the town they began to gain height as they went until the sides of the hills became steeper and they entered a pass, thickly wooded on both flanks.
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.’
Lamb smiled. He had never contemplated emigrating. Never would. What, he reasoned, could he possibly find on the other side of the world that he could not have in England? He respected the New Zealanders and the Aussies. Had fought alongside them in the desert. They were good fighters, tough as they came, and they made his own men, most of them, seem puny with their physique. But he would never get used to the extraordinary relationship both nationalities had with their officers. Never. Of course his own relationship with Bennett, and even with the unfathomable Valentine, come to that, was something special, but about the Antipodeans there was a lack of respect, a lack of deference that would never be part of what Lamb knew to be at the heart of the British army. So he smiled sweetly at Captain Nichols and raised his glass. ‘Love to, old man. After all this.’
He was just wondering whether the colonel might offer them another whisky when there was a commotion from the sentries. No shots, just raised voices, one of which sounded to Lamb distinctly patrician. The colonel looked around and nodded at one of the junior officers. ‘Frank. Be a good chap and see what that’s all about, will you.’ He paused and smiled, weakly, like a man resigned to his fate. ‘The rest of you might like another. We’d better make the most of it, don’t you think? God knows where we’ll be tomorrow, after Jerry gets here.’
The mess steward, a hairy former sheep-shearer from Auckland, moved around silently through the group of officers dispensing from the whisky bottle until it was drained and then, as the soda water followed from a syphon that bizarrely had made it to Greece across 8,000 miles of ocean, there was a roar from the road and as they watched, still clutching their drinks, a long black limousine, a Citroën, Lamb thought, sped past their improvised mess, along the road, in the direction of Athens.
It was preceded by two exhausted-looking motorcyclists and followed by several other vehicles, brimming with troops.
Lamb looked at the occupants and recognised General ‘Jumbo’ Wilson, commander of the Allied forces in Greece, in the front seat beside the driver. Behind him, alongside a woman wearing an elaborate hat, was a tanned and callow youth wearing the uniform of a general in the Greek army, his face set in a stern expression. The vehicles drove past them throwing up dust and rock. Lamb turned to the Kiwi CO, Colonel Robertson. ‘Was that who I think it was, sir?’
The colonel nodded. ‘Yes, I think it was.’ He called to the gawky lieutenant, who had come hurrying back from the sentries. ‘Frank, who the devil was that?’
‘The Prince of Greece, sir, Prince Peter, and General Wilson.’
Captain Nichols spoke. ‘Blimey, sir. Jumbo himself. They weren’t half in a hurry. Didn’t even stop for a drink.’
There was laughter from the officers. Colonel Robertson smiled. ‘They’re on their way to the sea. Getting away. And I daresay that’s where we should be headed now ourselves, gentlemen. But for the moment we’ve got to stay here and fight.’
It was the signal for the end of their little party, and Lamb returned to the men. He found Bennett. ‘Sarnt-Major, get the men together. I need to talk to them.’
They assembled quickly. He would not say much, he thought. No ‘St Crispin’s Day’ oratory. Just a few words to steady their nerves. Lamb climbed on to a rock to address them; looked around and saw some familiar faces, those few of the men who had come with him out of France the year before, and many more of those whom he had led through Egypt and into Greece. Men whom he knew he would now trust with his life. He coughed and smiled.
‘Good evening. I hope that you’ve been fed and that the Sarnt-Major has looked after you all.’ There was laughter and someone called out, ‘Like me own mother, sir.’
Lamb nodded and went on. ‘You know what we’ve got to do. We came here to stop the Jerries taking Greece and we haven’t quite managed it. It’s no fault of yours. But now we’ve got a different job to do. If we can’t save Greece then at least we can save our own men and let them get away to Egypt. The command don’t expect the Kiwis here to hold this place. What they have got to do is slow Jerry up and give him a bloody nose. And we’re going to help them.’
One of the men spoke. One of the new ones, Hay, a good-looking East End lad on whom Lamb was keeping his eye for a future NCO. ‘Like the Guards at Dunkirk did, sir. Didn’t they?’
‘Yes, Smith. Just like the Guards did at Dunkirk.’
The boy can’t have been long out of school when that happened, he thought. But they all knew about Dunkirk, about the miracle, Churchill’s miracle. They didn’t know, of course, about the other evacuation, down in Normandy, at a place called St Valery, where Lamb and his few survivors had got away. That had been no miracle. Far from it, and not spoken of now. Nor were the 8,000 men of the Highland Division whom they had had to abandon there to be taken prisoner with their general. And Lamb knew that for the present, at least, that must stay in the past. There was another battle to fight now and the enemy were pressing ever closer. He spoke again.
‘You’ve met the Kiwis here. They’re good men. Good fighters. There’s a battery of 25-pounders up on that ridge to our right. Aussies. So while the gunners fire at the tanks and trucks, it’s our job to take out the advancing infantry who’ll be following on behind. Some of you have fought with me before. You lucky few.’ More laughter. ‘The others will have heard all about that and they will know as well as you veterans do that I’m not a man to give up. So we’ll stand here with the Kiwis and do what we can, and then when we’re given our orders we’ll make our escape. And one more thing. I don’t want to leave anyone behind. Got that? Now, get what rest you can and good luck.’
There were a few murmurs of ‘Good luck to you, sir’, and the men drifted away to find shelter in the olive grove.
Lamb stepped down from the stone. One of the men had hung back. Spencer.
‘Sir, just one thing.’
‘Yes, Spencer.’
‘Sir, what exactly are we doing here? I mean, sir, I know what you just told us, about saving the Greeks and all that, but why are we here?’
‘We’re sent here, Spencer. By the generals. To try to stop Hitler. And to try to stop him without getting ourselves killed. That’s all you need to know, lad. Now off you go.’
Lamb himself wondered what they were doing in Greece. What relevance it had to Britain. France he could see. That was obvious. But he was sure they were in Greece for purely political reasons and he wondered if that was a good enough reason to die. The more he saw of those reasons in this war, the less he liked it.
Two of the lieutenants were standing beside him, and a short distance away the old lags of the company including Bennett, Valentine and Mays.
Wentworth spoke. ‘Must seem a bit strange for you, sir. A year after we get out of France we’re doing the same thing again. 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 away from the stream of bullets. Still the artillery on the heights fired into the column, and more trucks burst into flames. Those that were still intact began to reverse down the hill, and the tank, which, pinned down by the gunners and blind in the dark, had showed itself powerless in such a situation, followed as fast as it could go.
Lamb gave the command. ‘Cease firing.’ The Jackals held their fire, all but three men who, elated by their unexpected success, carried on shooting at shadows until their platoon sergeants had shouted themselves nearly hoarse.
Lamb surveyed the road and hills before them. Counted eight lorries and two motorcycles burning on the highway.
He saw Nichols. ‘Well, that sent them packing. I wonder how long before they try again.’
‘Not long, I should say. If they do.’
‘They won’t try to bomb you out, will they? They need the road intact.’
‘Don’t be too sure. They don’t care how they get rid of us. Then they’ll just fix the road, or build a new one. They’re already building a new bridge at Corinth.’
Mays found him. ‘Sir. Two wounded. One bad, Marks. Hit in the thigh. He’ll need to be treated, sir.’
Nichols spoke. ‘Our MO’s somewhere by the command post to the rear. Take him there, Sergeant. I’d better see to my own men.’
Lamb walked across to the left as they were helping Marks back to the aid post and gave him a smile. ‘Well done, Marks. You’ll be fine.’ He looked around at the others, sitting in the moonlight on the rocks, wiping down their weapons and sensed not just exhaustion now but a sense of achievement. ‘Well done, all of you. That showed them. Sarnt-Major, make sure they’re ready in case Jerry tries it again. And be ready for air attack too. They know where we are now.’
It only took a few minutes before the recce planes came over. They flew close to the ground, like hawks hovering over a wheat field, swooping and climbing in their search for prey. There was no point in trying to hide. It was too late for that, and no sooner had the planes gone than others appeared over the mountains. Dorniers, lumbering in. The heavy stuff. Lamb saw them and joined in the warning shouts.
‘Aircraft. Take cover. Take cover.’
The aircraft were not as low as the Stukas. There was no frantic, screaming dive, but looking up he could see the bomb doors open and watched as the black sticks fell from the belly of the plane. He ran to one of the stone sangars and found himself crouching next to Bennett, Eadie and Smart, and it crossed his mind that this sort of thing was really of no use as cover against air attack. He prayed that the order forbidding anti-aircraft fire would be lifted, but it was a full ten minutes before he heard the crump of the Australian batteries as they tried to down the bombers. He looked up and saw little puffs of smoke appear in the sky around the planes, but by then it was too late.
‘Just in time,’ scoffed Eadie. Some distance over to their left another sangar filled with Kiwis had taken a hit and its useless stones lay scattered across the valley, along with the remains of its occupants. Lamb looked away as the Dorniers turned for home.
The free sample has ended.
