How I Won the War (20 page)

“Good Gawd Almighty!” yelled Gripweed. “Everybody up the curb!”

He spun the wheel hard over, mounted the pavement and drove into an undertaker’s window…. Two hundred yards ahead, thundering down the hill, came a riderless tram … flames roaring back from its windows, smoke belching over the roof, and exploding ammunition spitting red and yellow fireworks out of its flanks … bucking and rearing over the track, wheels screeching on the bends, the fiery juggernaut hurtled past just as the tail of my column followed Gripweed on to the sidewalk and gave it right of way. Four hundred yards farther on it leapt a hump-bridge, ski-jumped for five incredible seconds … lost its balance and crashed broadside into the Dionysos Kinema.

“I’ve been attacked by some weapons in my time,” said Sergeant Transom as we crouched behind the coffin lids. “Back in Jellybad they used to bombard us with bags of boiling hot camel-dung. But this is the first time anybody ever came at me with a tram … and look out! Here comes another!”

Down roared a second flame-monster, exploding bodily a furlong away, leaving the track and skidding wheels first towards us, mowing down lamp standards like matchsticks till it came finally to rest three light-lengths ahead.

“Someone must have been to school in England,” I said. “They got this idea from Drake and his fire-ships.”

“Or from Blackpool and their illuminated trams,” said Gripweed.

“How many trams have they got up there?” asked
Sergeant
Transom.

“Must be about a hundred,” said Spiros. “It’s a main depot at Coralos. And they’ve got loads of tar barrels from the new road-works.”

“They could keep us out all day with that lot…. Heads down, lads!”

The third tram-incendiary was better balanced and flashed flaming past us, over the hump-bridge and on out of sight. The next couple came off the rails on the down run and finished as burning hulks among the shaven lamp standards. Aristotle the tram driver was sobbing quietly at the sight of his beautiful street-galleys crashing down to their fiery death and talking through his tears to Spiros.

“I ask him,” explained the interpreter, “if
there’s another way up to Coralos. He say no, we got to go up this hill for one mile. Then we come to crossroads and can go rest of way off the tram route.”

“Do other tram routes join at the crossroads?” asked Sergeant Transom.

“Yes.”

“Good. Then maybe we can get past these flaming
dreadnoughts
, after all…. Get two sections out, Corporal Dooley. Bring the truck tools and a crowbar. We’re patrolling with Aristotle up to the crossroads.”

We fired everything we had at longest range just to keep any ELAS around on the jump and made it to the crossroads without trouble.

“Hunky-dory,” said Aristotle. “Here she is. O. K., boss. Right away … ding, ding!”

He levered the crowbar down into the slit in the pavement and heaved the points over. Sergeant Transom hammered in a rock to wedge the lines and jumped back as the next flamewagon came hurtling down…. It swung with the points away from our road and went hurtling on down the left-hand fork and out of sight round the bend below.

“Operation Tram-Diversion complete, sir,” reported
Sergeant
Transom.

“Well done, indeed.” I pointed down the new route for the public transport volcanoes. “And where will that road take them, Spiros?”

He spoke to Aristotle.

“Ain’t nobody but ELAS down there, sir Lieutenant. That road runs straight down past the waterworks and the
Herodias
Brewery.”

I consoled myself with the thought that both Major Arkdust and Captain Croker were paid more money than I was. As we advanced again the roadblocks became thicker and the opposition heavier. Through the hot, dusty afternoon we skirmished and scuffled from street corner to street
corner
, quelling-some pockets of resistance by simple weight of mortar and machine gun firepower, defeating others more determined by my classical left hook outflanking technique. What with those paratroops, the V trams, and the stress of active command, it was a long, hard day, but I was sustained throughout by the image of those fifty grateful nurses
fluttering
about me as I bounded into the hospital to release them from six weeks of hell. The ELAS made their final stand at the entrance to the square in which the 812th General Hospital stood, and I had to mount a set-piece assault to hit them for six out of Coralos. After an hour’s fighting for the strategic public lavatories, they finally broke up and pulled out.

The 812 Hospital Campaign–Advance and Retreat

Drawing my revolver, I ran up the steps and into the reception hall. Everything was quiet, polished and orderly, and nurses walked primly to and fro. Nobody took any notice of me. There was a door marked “Matron.” Revolver at the heroic ready, tin hat at a devil-may-care angle, I burst triumphantly in.

“It’s all over!” I cried. “The 812th General Hospital is relieved!”

Matron, handsome and gold-gray, looked up from her writing.

“Good evening,” she said.

“Good evening,” I said. “You’re all liberated!”

“Liberated? From whom?”

“From the rebels. The ELAS and the Communists and all that. Are there any left in the building?” I dropped into a fighting crouch.

“In the building?” She was horrified at the idea. “In
my
hospital? … I should think not. Except for a few of their wounded. They came swarming in about six weeks ago but I told them I can’t have armed men about my hospital. I’ll take your wounded, I said, but the rest of you must get out.” She waved her hand majestically. “And they went. They argued at first but I soon sent them packing…. And tell me, Lieutenant, was that you and your men making all that noise in the square just now?”

“Yes,” I said. “It was. We were fighting the ELAS.
Quelling
the revolution … you know …”

“That’s as it may be but there are sick people in here and I can’t have all that noise going on outside my windows. And you’ll have to move that armoured car out of the courtyard. I wouldn’t let the ELAS bring arms into the hospital and I
can’t let you. If you let me know how many men you’ve got I’ll send you a hot meal down to the gates…. God bless my soul!” She stopped and pointed aghast at my ammunition boots. “Did you come across my hall in those dreadful boots?”

“I’m sorry … I’m afraid I did …”

She stood up. Fearful she would devour me, I fell back a step.

“Keep still!” she commanded. “Don’t make it worse. Those great hobnails! Across my polished floors! Whatever next?”

I froze on the spot while she sent for an orderly and two slipmats. She put one under each of my feet and I had to shuffle miserably back to the front door like a duck on ice. The crew thought I was crazy when I made them push the truck out of the courtyard lest the noise of the engine bring her out.

We withdrew to the far side of the square and that night I sent Spiros to get a message through to the local ELAS commander suggesting he might like to start fighting
tomorrow
in some other street. He sent back to say he was only too pleased—he’d already had a basinful of Matron
himself
.

T
HE MUSKETEERS CONTINUED THROUGHOUT
the Greek
Campaign
as motorized infantry, driving steadily northwards, and when an uneasy truce was agreed after six weeks’ fighting, we found our progress halted some fifty miles from Athens. A truce line was drawn across the country at the limit of the Allied advance. The agreement stipulated that the ELAS troops should withdraw unmolested beyond this line and that hostilities should be temporarily suspended while attempts were made to obtain peace by negotiation.

We were spread very thinly on the ground and Twelve Platoon, strengthened by a few National Guard—
Goodbody-Force
as I called it in my reports—occupied the town of Dolia. The truce wasn’t really popular round there, and up in the mountains, just across the road, thousands of ELAS warriors were restively withdrawn, trigger-fingers itching and anxious for any pretext to be over the line and at me and my hopeful half-hundred holding the town.

Dolia had been pretty well stripped by the Germans when they retreated and there was no local government to notice. Inured by occupation to regard the latest military
commander
as the source of all authority, the town automatically
transferred responsibility for its administration to me. And thus gave me my first experience of the soldier in politics.

Things were very niggly on the nerves. The only telephone line still working connected to the ELAS headquarters over the border and the local editor would ring them nightly for news. A Swede from the Red Cross came back from his relief tours of the mountains with daily and ever-gloomier
forebodings.

“Dere are more and more of dem all around you every day. Dey sharpen up deir weapons, dey practise with deir guns. Tonight, it is for sure dey come down to attack you. Tonight, it is dey come to cut everybody’s throats.”

Every night, according to his intelligence, was to be the night of the long knives and the continual evening stand-to’s gave me little time for my Memoirs and brought serious complaints from the lady who owned the town brothel. As I have already explained, I am not a chap for that sort of thing myself, but as a military commander one cannot close one’s eyes to the fact that such places exist and that, let’s face it, soldiers are wont to frequent them. I apologize to any lady readers for mentioning such establishments and would assure them that war, unfortunately, is like that.

Madame was a brisk, efficient business woman who came straight to the point.

“Why you wanna ruin my business, Captain? Why you wanna make me poor woman? Why for you make the
soldiers
come out of my house eight, nine, ten o’clock every night?”

“I have no desire to reduce your turnover, madame. It is vital for security reasons that I have the soldiers back in their billets at recognized times.”

I did not bother to correct her misinterpretation of my rank. It was all in the interests of local prestige. And
perhaps
, coming from a Greek, it was a favourable omen—the Delphic oracle and all that.

“Why for you got to have them in billets before even children go to bed?”

“Because we may be attacked at any time by the ELAS. I must have my troops available in their billets to defend the town and carry out my orders.”

“You not get attacked by ELAS. Not yet. My piano player, Iliou, got a brother, Tasos, who’s big shot over in ELAS. So you don’t have to worry. I tell you when Iliou say ELAS going to attack.”

“I’m afraid, madame,” I said, smiling deprecatingly, “that you do not appreciate the methods of British Army
Intelligence
. We could never base our defence arrangements on the reports of a man who plays the piano in a brothel.”

She shook her head in puzzlement.

“But if you are attacked, why you want them back in billets? Their billets are scattered all over town.”

“The section billets, madame, have been carefully sited so that each forms a strong point in my Dolia Defense
System
.”

“You can’t defend the whole town with fifty-six men, Captain! You want to know the best strong point in Dolia? You want to know where the Germans had their machine guns?”

“Where?”

“On the roof of my brothel. My house stand up on the hill. From my roof you can shoot anybody, anywhere in Dolia. My brothel best damned strong point in all Dolia. Look, I show you on map …”

And after I’d studied my map for a while under her German-trained direction, I began to feel she was quite right.

“So you do better, Captain,” she said, “to let your soldiers stay all night in my brothel and not go back to billets at all. Then if ELAS attack you know just where they are.”

“Much as I appreciate your tactical theories, madame, I’m afraid that Allied Forces Headquarters would not approve of my entire garrison sleeping every night in your brothel.”

“Why not? When the Italians were here they used to sleep all night with my girls.”

“We are not Italians, madame. It is a matter of traditional British morality. Lady Astor would have me up at the bar of the House if I allowed such a thing. I cannot officially encourage soldiers to spend the night at your brothel.”

“But it’s safer for your soldiers that way. My girls good, clean girls inspected by doctor every Monday. You make
your men stay all night in billets they get sleeping with amateurs …” Her face filled with hatred at the mention. “Dirty, little amateurs … they never get inspected. They give all your soldiers terrible diseases …”

“Even so, madame, and giving all due weight to your point of hygiene, I cannot authorize them to sleep at your brothel.”

She thought for a moment. Then inspiration came.

“All right then, Captain. Soldiers can’t stay sleep with the girls at my place like Italians. Then you do like the Germans did. You let soldiers take my girls back with them to their billets for the night.”

She clapped her hands in jubilation.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but Lady Astor and the Chaplain General wouldn’t stand for that either. The British Army would never officially sanction the overnight stay of
prostitutes
in official billets.”

She sighed enormously and her eyes asked heaven for patience. Then she squared herself up and settled to the attack like a female D. A.

“Now, Captain! You agree that my house is very fine for defence?”

“Yes, but …”

“And if your soldiers are there they are in good place to fight?”

“Well, yes …”

“And that my girls are cleaner for soldiers than bloody amateurs in billets?”

“That may be so …”

“Then why not you let my girls and your soldiers be happy all night together?”

“Because … because … because it just isn’t done.”

She threw up her hands and asked God to look after me.

“It … just … is … not … done!” She beat out the words in fury with the flat of her fist. “The Italians … they are sensible people…. The Germans … you can reason with them … But, my God! …
The
English!
”
Her voice rose to a frustrated wail of international despair and she swept out of the office.

I was tempted to put a machine gun section up on her roof, but I couldn’t think of anyone I could trust. So I contented myself for the time being with putting a tail on Iliou the piano player.

The two main political thorns in my flesh were Agro and Spiliou, two dark, flint-eyed little men who ran the local Communist Party office at 27 High Street, Dolia. They were dedicated to provoking the bloodthirsty British into acts of tyranny which could be boiled up into a pretext for breaking the truce. We were under pain-of-death orders to be all sweetness and light to the local populace and, in any case, were not anxious to see the Swedish prophecies fulfilled.

At first they organized parades with Union Jack-covered coffins round and round our headquarters, painted on walls rude things in Greek about Winston Churchill and held
à-
bas-
les
-Anglais
meetings each evening in the main square. It depressed them profoundly when they found that we watched these entertainments with beaming benignity and they gave them up altogether when unidentified burglars got into their offices one night and stole their coffins, flags, paint, brushes, and rabble-rousing megaphones.

Having decided there was no future in trying to goad us to acts of violence in moments of passion, Agro and Spiliou settled down to a cold war of attrition in which their main tactic was eternal deputation. Every morning, sharp at nine, there would be an aggrieved organization waiting on my official doorstep. It is a point of honour in Greek deputations that every member must have his individual spiel. With a people whose stamina for the discussion of political science is rivalled only by their ineptitude in its application, these individual orations totalled up to a long time. It rarely took less than an hour for a complete deputation to deliver its impassioned complaints and for me to make my diplomatic, peace-loving replies. And as each delegation departed,
another
would be waiting to take its place—the Municipal
Wash-houses
and Street Cleaning Committee asking why the British didn’t issue free brooms as the Germans did, followed by the Amalgamated Metal Beaters Union complaining they had no metal to beat, the Young Wives Fellowship dissatisfied with the quality of the free powdered milk and their consequent
difficulty in selling it on the black market, the National Society of Waiters and Café Assistants demanding we provide more fuel to run the electricity supply all night, the League of Socialist Youth exhibiting a fully-paid-up comrade whose head had been shaved and stained bright blue by the Royalists, and God-appealing officials of the Mothers Union of Attica displaying sundry beautiful daughters whom they claimed the British had lately liberated from the burden of virginity.

Although the members before me changed as deputation succeeded deputation, the two constants were Agro and
Spiliou
. They ushered in each party, ticking them off in their little black books, and. were ever present at the back, listening discreetly for the party line and ensuring that the orators fulfilled their allotted spans. Their idea, clearly, was to keep wheeling up petitioners until finally my patience would
become
exhausted and I would reject a legitimate grievance, kick a party bodily down the stairs, refuse point-blank to see any more delegations, or perform some similar act of
violence
which would reveal the British as the Fascist Jackals, Reactionary Hyenas, and Imperialist Vampires they really were.

I had Sergeant Transom with me when I received the delegations. I thought that a committee of two would display the democracy of the British in action and protect me from any charges of trying to impose a dictatorship in Dolia. Experience of political negotiation would also help him, I felt, in his development into potential officer material. At first, we both listened to our voluble visitors with the patience of Job and the benevolence of Pickwick. For the first day of continual embassy our tolerance held out well and we were still smiling fixedly at the end; on the second day the golden Greek voices grated on our ears like a rust-ridden rookery and we grew short of breath in the garlic-sprayed
atmosphere
; and by the close of the third, Agro and Spiliou were well on the way to victory. Our paternal smirks had faded into rat trap scrowls. Simon Legree was our paragon and we quite saw Hitler’s point of view.

It was in the middle of the fourth morning that Sergeant Transom finally cracked. As the committee of the Hellenic
Society of Master Bakers and Pastrycooks retired after
demanding
for seventy minutes that icing sugar be given
priority
on all British convoys, he slammed down his pencil and swore unbrokenly for a minute and a half.

“… and if those two blue-chinned, shifty-eyed bastards bring one more delegation through that door I’ll take the pair of them by the scruff of their necks and toss them out the flaming window!”

In my heart I agreed with him, but as an officer and local military commander I could not, of course, afford to lose my self-control.

“Steady, Sergeant,” I said. “We mustn’t crack up now. One outburst of violence on our side and the truce may be broken. Peace in Greece in our time rests upon our
shoulders
.”

“Maybe they don’t want peace in Greece. They’ve never had none for the last forty years. One more afternoon like yesterday and they’ll be making up my bed in Banstead.”

“And I’ll be needing a new larynx,” said Spiros, hoarse and broken-voiced as a prairie bishop.

The next delegation was already being shepherded in by Agro and Spiliou.

“Chin up, chaps,” I whispered. “Never do to show
weakness
in front of the enemy.”

Sergeant Transom sat muttering direfully to himself as the Ancient Order of Olive Pressers dilated upon the damage British bullets had done to the olive crop, the familiarity of Private Drogue with a female operator bending over her press, and the depression of their exorbitant local profits by the dumping on Dolia of Royalist olive oil from the
hinterland
. They demanded, after fifty minutes of over-articulation, that a military edict should be issued forbidding anyone from outside the town to sell olive oil in Dolia.

“Eager as His Majesty’s Government are to do all in their power to assist the Dolia Branch of the Ancient Order of Olive Pressers,” I said, “and much as they deprecate the sexual liberties taken with one of its loyal lady members by Private Drogue, I am afraid that they could not be party to an economic arrangement of the nature you suggest. It would be grossly unfair to the people of the surrounding villages. If
they do not sell their oil in the market at Dolia, where can they sell it? It would be against all British principles of fair play to bar the villagers in order to keep your prices up. That sort of thing just wouldn’t be playing the game. It simply isn’t cricket.”