Authors: Rick Stroud
After this outburst Moss and Kreipe sat side by side, sulking in silence, each unable to get out of the presence of the other. Tension built in the hideout. Moss wrote in his diary: ‘All Germans are the same young and old. I take an oath now that if I can humanly accomplish it I shall kill or have killed a thousand Germans before I leave the island.’
Manolis Paterakis began to nag Moss, muttering that he thought the general was going to try and escape or give the game away by shouting to attract the search parties. The team watched him all the time, cocked weapons in their hands, and followed him everywhere, especially on his frequent excursions to urinate in the thickets.
The sun grew hotter, the rustling impatience of the cicadas filled the air and birds sang in counterpoint to the drone of the spotter plane which had reappeared overhead. The kidnappers could hear the grinding gears of lorries toiling along the few suitable roads and the occasional crump of a hand grenade or the chatter of a heavy machine gun, fired by nervous soldiers at the phantoms they imagined were waiting to ambush them.
In the destroyed villages, the engineers poured fuel on the ruins. Choking black smoke swirled everywhere, towering for hundreds of feet in the air and drifting for miles, cloaking the countryside with the acrid, sickly sweet smell of burning rubble and kerosene. The homeless villagers tried to escape to the safety of the mountains, caught in the misery of life on the run. The German propaganda newspaper
Paratiritis
ran a story about the destruction of the villages:
The brazen and criminal deeds of the outdoor bandits who abducted and spirited away General Kreipe brought about the inevitable measures against the elements: elements guilty of illegal activity against the security of the occupying forces and the general peace of the area . . . the villages of Lochria, Kamares and Margarikari were surrounded by German troops on 3 May 1944 and emptied in the course of a large-scale operation waged against the bandits of Mount Ida. After the evacuation of the villagers the villages themselves were razed to the ground.
Another, even more ominous leaflet which was distributed, read:
Cretans beware the edge of the German sword
will strike down everyone of the guilty men
and all the henchmen and all the hirelings of the English.
In the evening Antonis Zoidakis returned. There were now enemy troops swarming into the south-east end of the Amari valley, heading for where they were hiding; there were now troops at both ends of the valley and soon they would be surrounded. The good news was that he thought he had discovered a track which would lead them through the cordon of patrols.
The destination, which they needed to reach that evening, was the village of Yerakari, in peacetime famous for its cherries, but since the beginning of the war a hub for guerrilla activity. They moved off as soon as it was dusk, guided up the flanks of Mount Kedros by Antonis and a local schoolmaster. The failing light cloaked the move and prevented General Kreipe from seeing how close his men were to finding him.
The mule that carried Kreipe was small and weak, and the journey took them all night. On the way, they were met by Ilias Athanassakis, leading a goat and carrying brushwood so as to look like a farmer. In one village they saw the light of an oil lamp and Chnarakis went ahead to investigate. It was the local raki factory. Moss peered through the windows and saw men toasting each other in the drink, throwing it down in one gulp between shouts of ‘
Eviva!
’ A cigarette-tin full of the potent liquor was brought outside to Moss and the others, who found the taste ‘warm and deceptively mellow’.
The rest of the journey passed without incident. Scouts moved ahead checking the villages ahead for German patrols. Moss found that, apart from the barking of dogs, everything had an eerie stillness. Just before dawn they reached Yerakari, and they were guided to the hut where they were to stay. They lit a fire and waited.
Leigh Fermor, Tyrakis and Psychoundakis arrived at the village of Patsos, an hour or so from Yerakari, and met up with another patriot, Giorgios Harokopos, whose family had helped British soldiers to escape after the battle for Crete. The Germans had raided the Harokopos house several times, imprisoning two of his uncles, torturing his younger brother, and declaring the family ‘Not law-abiding’, after which they burnt the house down. Harokopos was now asked go to Yerakari on 7 May and lead the abduction team to a new, safer hideout where they could all reunite somewhere near Patsos. Leigh Fermor reminded the young resistance fighter of the seriousness of the task he was about to undertake. In return the British officer offered to give him safe passage on the motor launch to Cairo.
That evening, the ISLD officer Ralph Stockbridge received Leigh Fermor’s message requesting his wireless set, and wrote a long reply:
From Ralph Stockbridge 6.5.44.
Dear Paddy,
Have already sent you two urgent messages with answers to your previous letter with news and instructions. Neither presumably reached you they were sent to the address you gave me. The burning of Sachtomic [the village of Sahtouria] cancels their news. Whether the news of this reached Cairo in time to stop them sending boat there last night
5
/6 I very much doubt also. Cairo say they broadcast capture of General and that he had reached Cairo on
30
th and 1st and news also published in press. Leaflets printed at once, but not dropped because of bad flying weather. Presumably dropped by now.
I regret I cannot come to meet you. Apart from the fact your messenger did not get here till midnight nearly, I am, as you know, my own operator, reluctant to leave the set particularly at the moment.
Stockbridge knew that there was another SOE agent on the island, Major Dennis Ciclitira.
What I suggest is this. Sachtomic and Rodakino are blown – Dick [Barnes] led a party there 8 days ago and his signals were answered by MG fire from the sea. Since when lots of Huns have snooped around there. But at ASI GONIA RPT ASI GONIA is Dennis and Dennis has a set and an operator with him and nothing to do, he is due to leave by the next boat which is due, I think in about a week’s time from the Preveli area. I suggest you send a runner along to Dennis saying you are coming to join him and in fact go over there and keep in touch with Cairo about boats. I will let Dick know also. This is better than runners chasing about all over the place with out-of-date news. I have told Cairo your situation – as far as half way through message about burning Sachtomic when all my batt[eries]s went flat suddenly . . . Will get this off have been up charging all night and will also send second telegraph saying you are out of Amari area and striking west. I will tell them to keep Dennis and Dick fully informed of both possibilities and to do their damnedest to get something in next week, even a destroyer if necessary.
Signals use MK every 20 minutes from 21:00 GMT onwards.
That at the moment is all I can tell you. Obviously you must have a set with you more or less to arrange about boat and Dennis is the obvious man. I personally am moving HQ tomorrow evening because these bloody people are scared stiff and kicking me out . . . If you prefer to stay where you are in any case contact Dennis. If anything urgent comes over my set for you I will send it to Dennis unless by tomorrow midday you let me know – you are staying where you are + Dick is to come and meet you at some given place at some given time. Though again there will be the communications difficulty + I consider preferable you join up with Dennis + I will let Dick know what you say. As I say if you want him with you send messenger (reliable please) tomorrow.
Have already sent you two lots of cigarettes. Here are some more and compo. Sorry about all this business.
Love from us all,
Ralph
MK – ‘Monkey King’ – was the recognition code to be flashed in Morse by torch from the beach of the rendezvous point to the rescue ship. If the captain of the pick-up vessel did not receive the signal, or if the signal was incorrect, he would cancel the rendezvous and head back across the sea to Egypt.
The huge and deadly game of hide and seek went on: the German searches forced everybody to keep moving from hideout to hideout with no quick way of contacting each other. As Stockbridge’s tight-lipped and disapproving message pointed out, even when a runner did get through, the news he carried was usually out of date.
Billy Moss and General Kreipe were still not speaking to each other. Moss had run out of things to read and passed the time delousing himself, sitting on a rock in the sun, stark naked, searched the seams of his clothes for parasites – much to the embarrassment of the guerrillas who found nudity shocking. Kreipe did the same thing though without completely disrobing. The hours passed slowly. An old man and his grandson appeared from the village with a scant meal of a few dried cherries and sour milk. Later the old man came back with a bottle of wine and spent the rest of the day staring at the group in total silence.
With little to eat and nothing to do, the general relented and broke his silence towards Moss. He apologised, explaining that his poor knowledge of French had made his words seem harsher than he meant. The two men passed the rest of the day discussing the course of the war. Kreipe argued that the Allies would never be able to land in northern Europe and that the only way the war would end was with a negotiated settlement. Moss was surprised at how little the high-ranking officer seemed to know. Kreipe admitted that terrible things had gone on in the Ukraine. He thought that the Romanians were the best allies the Fatherland had, followed by the Italians, who he thought were ‘very good indeed’.
In the afternoon, the young Giorgios Harokopos arrived, eager and ready to lead the abduction team and their prisoner on their journey to the next hideout at Harakas about a mile beyond the village of Patsos where, although they did not know it, Leigh Fermor was hiding. Harokopos was excited at the prospect of seeing the now legendary kidnap team and their captive general, but found the kidnappers looking tired and worried, their faces etched with the strain and uncertainty of the last two weeks. He shook hands with each of them and congratulated them on their brilliant achievement, hoping in his heart that he would not let down such a magnificent group of men. Then he said a polite ‘Good evening’ to General Kreipe and helped him mount the mule on which he was to travel.
The route to Patsos took them past the village of Spili, where a German battalion was garrisoned. Paterakis and Harokopos scouted about a quarter of a mile ahead of the main party, checking for ambushes. If they fell into a trap the others would have a chance to get away and hide in places that had already been identified for use in an emergency. The weight of the burly Kreipe became too much for the mule and the general was forced to go on foot; the journey, which should have been completed in three hours, took nearly six.
A string of messengers arrived for Leigh Fermor, all with bad news: the Germans were closing off beach after beach; hundreds of Cretans now knew the kidnappers were hiding in the area and, although most of them were determined to help the team, it was only a matter of time before a collaborator revealed where Kreipe was being kept, or one of the guerrillas was captured and broken under torture.
Most alarming of all was news that Cairo was mounting a rescue attempt led by the commander of the Special Boat Squadron (SBS), twenty-six-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George (the Earl) Jellicoe, who was a maverick. In 1942 he led the commando raid on Heraklion airfield in which twenty enemy aircraft had been destroyed and for which he won the DSO, complemented the following year by the award of an MC for actions on Rhodes. Neither Jellicoe nor Cairo knew that the chosen landing beach at Sahtouria was guarded by nearly two hundred German soldiers. It was clear that Jellicoe’s party was on a suicide mission and likely to be massacred. Leigh Fermor sent a runner back to Dick Barnes with a signal asking Cairo to cancel the operation. It was 7 May; Jellicoe was due to land on the 9th. Leigh Fermor hoped his signal would get through in time.
Next he sent a runner with a message to Moss telling him about the raid. From the scribbled address Moss realised Leigh Fermor was very close by. He sent a reply asking his superior to rendezvous with him as soon as possible. Leigh Fermor and his group broke camp and set off to rejoin the others.
On the way he and Tyrakis discussed what they would do if the raiding party appeared. Leigh Fermor thought they should send Kreipe to the village of Rodakino under an escort of guerrillas. Leaving the rest of the kidnappers to create a diversion, after which they could ‘hare over the mountain’. Tyrakis said that no one wanted to stay with the general and suggested they put Kreipe in a cave and roll a huge boulder over the mouth to imprison him. In the last resort they would have to kill him and fling his body into a deep hole where he would never be found, just as they had done with his driver.
In the middle of the night of
9
/
10
May, Leigh Fermor and Tyrakis rejoined the others at Patsos. In the three days they had been away they had walked more than sixty miles. They arrived to find everyone asleep.
Leigh Fermor shook Moss awake, shining his torch in the young man’s face and then into his own. They were delighted and relieved to see each other. The next two hours were spent drinking raki and smoking, going over and over the problem of Jellicoe’s raid. Leigh Fermor now wanted to take a ‘gang of twenty-five local thugs’ down to the beach at Sahtouria to cause havoc behind the German lines as they came under fire from Jellicoe and his commandos. Under cover of the fight, Moss and the others would have to break out to the west with the general. Finally, tipsy and exhausted, they all fell asleep.