Jackals’ Revenge. Iain Gale

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ