Corporal Cotton's Little War (21 page)

‘Why not let someone else go?’ Bisset suggested, but Cotton shook his head.

‘I’m strongest,’ he said, feeling that strong arms and a weak head were the only assets he possessed.

Once again Bisset and Kitcat were going with the donkey, to dismantle one of the mountings for the Lewises, and this time, unexpectedly, Annoula wanted to accompany them. But, with Docherty and Gully busy, she had to remain behind as look-out. She seemed unhappy about the arrangements and it puzzled Cotton because he couldn’t imagine that, after the way Docherty had made her laugh all day, she wished to come simply to be near him.

Once again, it was dark when they reached Kharasso Bay but, with the moon and the experience of the previous night, loading the dinghy was much quicker this time and Cotton pushed off and started rowing. It seemed no nearer and no easier than it had the previous night, and he came to the conclusion that he was the mug for the whole party.

Then - unexpectedly, because when he had set off the sky had seemed full of stars -- the rain came, slowly at first and then in a drenching downpour so that he began to fear the boat would be swamped and he’d have to swim for it, losing the drum of petrol and the dinghy as well.

Just as unexpectedly, however, it stopped, but as the hiss of the rain died, he heard another sound, a growling metallic sound that came quietly at first, threateningly, then growing in sound until it filled the heavens. Resting on his oars, he stared upwards, picking out eight aircraft which seemed to be approaching the island from the west in formation, their lights on so they could see each other.

He was still wondering who they were, half-hoping they were the RAF come to give the Germans at Yanitsa a taste of their own medicine, when the lights changed position as the aircraft swung clear and formed up in line astern. Then, one after the other, as they came lower, the engines were cut until they passed over the tops of the hills and disappeared from sight towards the north of the island.

The heavy rain that had soaked Baldamus and Captain Ehrhardt had stopped when they first heard the aircraft approaching.

‘There they are!’

The lights in the sky drew closer and they could hear the engines approaching as the aircraft came down out of the darkness, slipping secretly into the landing strip at Yanitsa at an hour when all the Greek workers had left.

Only Major Baldamus, Captain Ehrhardt and a few men were there to see them arrive. There were eight aircraft, all of them big Junkers 52s, and as they touched down, swung round and came into line, one after the other, they headed slowly towards where the lorries were waiting in the darkness. As the first of the machines came to a stop, its motors still running, the door opened in the side and men began to pour out. They wore overalls and small pot-shaped helmets, different from the lipped helmet that hung behind the door in Baldamus’ office. Without any instructions from Baldamus, they hurried towards the lorries, climbed aboard the first two and were immediately driven off. As the lorries vanished and the aeroplane swung round and headed for the end of the landing strip, the second aeroplane took its place. Once more it emptied of men, and as they were also driven off in the next two vehicles, the aeroplane moved away and the third machine appeared through the darkness.

The operation was repeated until all eight aeroplanes had emptied and all the lorries had gone. As the first aeroplane took off into the night, heading north into the darkness, the second pushed into its place, and the third moved up close behind. By the time the last aeroplane’s passengers had been driven away, the fourth machine was already in the air. Within minutes, the remaining four aeroplanes had taken off and the operation was ended. The landing strip at Yanitsa was as empty as it had been before the machines had arrived.

Ehrhardt watched with his mouth open. Baldamus smiled.

‘That, in my opinion,’ he said, ‘was a beautifully executed operation.’

Ehrhardt drew a deep breath. ‘Does anybody else know about this?’

‘Just you and I and a few others. See that it remains that way.’

‘Where are they going?’

Baldamus smiled. ‘I’ll give you three guesses,’ he said.

‘They’re Special Air Division troops.’    .

‘I can see you’re a
good
guesser, Ehrhardt.’

As Cotton pulled into Xiloparissia Bay he was soaked and there were several inches of water sloshing round his feet in the bottom of the boat. The rain hadn’t helped to cool him off much and his arms felt like lead. There was no sign of a light aboard
Loukia and
he assumed that Docherty and Gully were still working. Then he realized he couldn’t hear the chink of tools or the thump of Gully’s mallet on a chisel and he supposed the rainstorm had driven them below deck. But no one came towards the boat as it grounded on the sand and he angrily decided that they hadn’t bothered to keep the look-out and that the girl hadn’t seen him.

Heaving the boat up the beach, he lifted out the anchor and trod it into the sand. As he straightened up, he heard a half-muffled cry from
Loukia
and he swung round at once and started running. At first he thought Petrakis had arrived but then he realized that the cry was feminine, despairing rather than panicky, and he knew at once what it meant.

Climbing on to the rocks, he began to scramble to the deck. As he did so, he heard the cry again. Lifting the forward hatch, he dropped through. Gully was snoring on one of the bunks, the bottle of raki, almost empty now, on the deck alongside him.

The cry came again and was as abruptly cut off. Snatching open the forecastle door, Cotton bounded through into the wheelhouse, his wet clothes leaving a damp smear on the blackened paintwork. The light came from the captain’s cabin and he saw the girl’s legs framed in the doorway, uncovered up beyond her thighs. As he jumped forward, he saw that Docherty was holding her down on the bunk, one of her arms underneath her, pinned by her own weight, and was gripping her other wrist with one hand. Her dress was open to the waist and Docherty was sprawled across her trying to force her to submit to him. For a fraction of a second, her terrified eyes saw Cotton over his shoulder; then Cotton had wrenched the stoker aside and punched him in the face. Docherty crashed into the door as the girl sat up, pulling at her clothes, and his hand reached out for a heavy wrench on the table. Cotton hit him again, with both hands, and then again. The wrench clattered to the deck and Cotton, uncertain what drove him on, smashed Docherty into the bulkhead until he yelled to him to stop.

‘You bloody fool,’ Cotton said in a low furious voice. ‘You bloody Christ-damned fool! We’ve got no friends on this island that we know of and the only people who’ve helped us so far were those blokes with the fishing boats. She’s our only contact with them. Do you think they’re going to help if they learn she’s been raped by a bloody fool stoker from the Royal Navy?’

Docherty’s anger diminished to a sullen scowl as he wiped the blood from his mouth. ‘Don’t give me that,’ he muttered. ‘You’re all flannel! She wanted it. She was asking for it.’

‘You’re a bloody liar!’

‘She came down encouraging me.’

‘I don’t believe you! I’ve a good mind to blow your bloody head off, Docherty! You might have buggered up our chances of ever getting away. We depend on these geezers’ goodwill - ‘

‘We ain’t seen so much so far!’

‘But we’ve seen a bit and we need all we can get. If you lift a finger to her again, I
will
shoot you. Tomorrow night
you
can row round the bloody point and fetch the petrol. It might do you good. It might make you so bloody tired you’ll not have the energy for that sort of thing.’

As Docherty climbed to his feet and vanished, Cotton stood in the doorway, staring after him, his chest heaving, his mind whirling with his problems. There seemed to be so much to think about and so much to remember.

He turned slowly. Annoula had risen to her feet and was fastening her dress.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It won’t ever happen again.’

She gave him an agonized look and the tears welled up into her eyes. His arms went out to her and pulled her to him, and she dissolved into incoherent sobbing against his wet shirt.

‘It’ll be all right,’ he kept saying, overwhelmed by her smallness, the protective feeling he felt for her, and the odd satisfaction that, despite Docherty’s crazy charm, she had fought him off when he’d expected her to submit. ‘It’ll be all right.’

After a while, she managed to become coherent. ‘I did not ask him,’ she said.

‘I’m sure you didn’t.’

‘He made me laugh, that’s all. It’s a long time since I laughed.’ She became faintly hysterical. ‘It’s my fault! I should have stayed in Yithion!’

He held her tighter, his comfortable soul curiously eased by her dependence on him. ‘It isn’t your fault,’ he said. ‘He’s a fool. He always has been. It’s my fault. I should have seen what he was up to. I never did have much brains.’

Her fingers tightened on his. ‘You are a good man, Cotton,’ she said.

He made her sit down. Then he went to the forecastle for the raki bottle. Seeing Gully still snoring on the bunk, he suddenly saw red. The carpenter was a typical seafaring man, boozy, stupid and unreliable ashore, never getting further than the first bar when his ship docked and he had money in his pocket. Consumed with rage, he grabbed his feet and swung them to the deck. Gully rolled off the bunk and crashed on to his face. His eyes wide, he sat up, staring at Cotton’s bedraggled figure.

‘What the ‘ell -?’ he began and, as Cotton wrenched him to his feet, he moaned in anguish.

‘Steady on, mate! I’m more keel than funnel at the moment!’

‘You bloody fool,’ Cotton said. ‘You got drunk!’

‘Only an eyeful! It started raining.’

‘I hid the bottle!’

‘Docherty found it. It didn’t seem to do no harm.’

‘You nearly finished the bloody bottle,’ Cotton snarled. ‘And Docherty knew you would. He tried to rape the girl.’

Gully seemed unconcerned. ‘Confucius ‘e say “No such thing as rape. Lady with skirt up run faster than man with trousers down.”.’

Cotton grabbed him by the shirt and shook him furiously, so that Gully had to clap a hand over his mouth to stop his false teeth falling out.

‘From now on there’ll be no- boozing aboard this boat,’ Cotton snapped. ‘I said I’d shoot Docherty if it happened again, and if
you
let it happen I’ll shoot you too. Okay? We can get back to Crete without either of you if we have to.’

He left Gully gaping after him, still uncertain what had happened, and, snatching up the bottle, went back to the girl. Sloshing some of the dregs of raki into one of the cans they’d been using for drinking, he sat beside her on the bunk, one arm round her shoulders as she sipped it, gulping her sobs back.

They were still there when Bisset and Kitcat returned, both of them as wet as Cotton from the rain. Bisset’s face was bewildered.

‘What’s up?’ he asked. ‘Gully’s sitting in the forecastle with a fat head and Docherty’s scowling at the floor in the engine room. We heard a lot of aircraft and we thought at first they’d shot the boat up.’

Cotton gestured angrily. ‘Keep Docherty away from me,’ he snarled, ‘or I’ll probably murder him.’

He told them what had happened and Bisset frowned. ‘Fat lot of help we’ll get if it gets to Yithion,’ he commented.

The girl shook her head. ‘I shall not tell anyone,’ she said in English. ‘Soon it will all be over and you’ll be gone.’

His face concerned, Bisset gently took the tin from her and put the last of the raki into it. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Finish it. Then try to sleep. It’ll seem different tomorrow.’

As they closed the cabin door, leaving her lying curled up on the bunk, her face to the bulkhead, Bisset’s eyebrows rose.

‘Did he -?’ He left the sentence unfinished and Cotton shook his head.

‘No. I arrived just in time. The dinghy’s still on the beach with the petrol in it. We’d better get it.’

Despair and hatred for Docherty darkened his face. He was well aware of his own lack of skill and it infuriated him that he was dependent on such fools as Gully and the stoker. The consciousness of his isolation swept over him again. Even Bisset, always calm, always helpful and encouraging, couldn’t take from him the load he’d shouldered - probably a bit too bloody fast, he thought bitterly. But having shouldered it, he couldn’t push it off on to any of the others. Not now.

Bisset was watching him as if he could read his thoughts.

‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘The news isn’t all bad. We brought back
both
mountings. We’ll fix ‘em on the deck tomorrow. Then, if those bloody Greeks come back, it won’t take a second to jam one of the Lewises in place. You could use it on Docherty at a pinch if you felt like it.’

11

The following morning, the Varvaras arrived in the blue caique. They brought news that Howard was much better and a load of oakum, tallow and three pots of paint. One of the pots contained black, one red and one the electric blue of Varvara’s boat.

As the sun rose higher, they brought round the 20 mm cannon. Considering it safer to stay behind, Cotton sent Bisset and Kitcat, while he remained near Annoula. She seemed to have recovered and sat on the wheelhouse roof, watching the sky for aircraft, her face pale and set. Gully worked on the hull, frowning as if he had a headache. A bit of fun and games with a girl had never troubled his conscience before, and he knew that if it hadn’t been Docherty it might well have been himself. Sailors were never noted for their high moral tone and he couldn’t understand what Cotton was getting hot under the collar about.

His face pulpy, Docherty sullenly began to assemble the starboard engine. ‘I reckon you’ve broken my nose,’ he complained.

‘You’re bloody lucky,’ Cotton said briskly. ‘I might have broken your neck.’

‘Just for a bloody wop ‘ore!’

‘Docherty,’ Cotton said, ‘she’s no more a whore than you’re a ponce. She’s done a lot to help us. So drop it, Docherty. Drop it or I
will
break your neck.’