The Final Cut. Michael Dobbs

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       PROLOGUE

       Troödos Mountains, Cyprus – 1956

      It was late on an afternoon in May, the sweetest of seasons in the Troödos, beyond the time when the mountains are muffled beneath a blanket of snow but before the days when they serve as an anvil for the Levantine sun. The spring air was filled with the heavy tang of resin and the sound of the breeze being shredded on the branches of great pines, like the noise of the sea being broken upon a pebbled shore. But this was many miles from the Mediterranean, almost as far as is possible to get from the sea on the small island of Cyprus.

      These were good times, a season of abundance even in the mountains. For a few weeks in spring, the dust of crumbling rock chippings which passes for soil becomes a treasury of wild flowers – erupting bushes of purple-flowered sword lily, blood-dipped poppies, alyssum, the leaves and golden heads of which in ancient times were supposed to effect a cure for madness.

      Yet nothing would cure the madness that was about to burst forth on the side of the mountain.

      George, fifteen and almost three-quarters, prodded the donkey further up the mountain path, oblivious to the beauty. His mind had turned once again to breasts. It was a topic which seemed to demand most of his time nowadays, depriving him of sleep, causing him not to hear a word his mother said, making him blush whenever he looked at a woman, which he always did straight between her breasts. They had an energy source all their own which dragged his eyes towards them, like magnets, no matter how hard he tried to be polite. He never seemed to remember what their faces looked like, his eyes rarely strayed that far – he’d marry a toothless old hag one day. So long as she had breasts.

      If he were to avoid insanity or, even worse, the monastery, somehow he would have to do it, he decided. Do IT. Before he was fifteen and three-quarters. In two weeks’ time.

      He was also hungry…On the way up, he and his younger brother, Eurypides, thirteen and practically one half, had stopped to plunder honey from the hives owned by the old crone, Chlorides, who had mean eyes like a bird and horribly gnarled fingers – she always accused them of robbing her, whether they had or not, so a little larceny used up some of their extensive credit. Local justice. George had subdued the bees with the smoke from a cigarette he had brought along specifically for the purpose. He’d almost gagged – he hadn’t taken to cigarettes yet, but would, he promised himself. Soon. As soon as he had had IT. Then, maybe, he could get to sleep at nights.

      Not far to go. The terraced ledges where a few wizened olive trees clung to the rock face were now far behind, they were already two kilometres above the village, less than another two to climb. The light had started to soften, it would be dark in a couple of hours and George wanted to be home by then.

      He gave the donkey another fierce prod. The animal, beneath its burden of rough-hewn wooden saddle and bulging cloth panniers, was finding difficulty in negotiating the boulder-strewn trail and cared nothing for such encouragement. The beast expressed its objection in the traditional manner.

      ‘Not over my school uniform, dog meat!’ Eurypides sprang back in alarm, too late, and cursed. There was a beating if he did not attend school in uniform. Even in a poor mountain village they had standards.

      And they had guns.

      Like the two Sten guns wrapped in sacking at the bottom of one of the panniers which they were delivering, along with the rest of the supplies, to their older brother. George envied his older brother, hiding out with five other EOKA fighters in a mountain lair.

      EOKA. Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston – the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters – who for a year had been trying to blast open the closed colonial minds of their British rulers and force them to grant the island independence. They were terrorists to some, liberation fighters to others. To George, great patriots. With every part of him that was not concerned with sex he wanted to join them, to fight the enemies of his country. But the High Command was emphatic; no one under the age of eighteen could take up arms. He would have lied, but there was no point, not in a village where everyone knew even the night of his conception, just before Christmas 1939. The war against the Germans was only a few months old and his father’s brother, also George, had volunteered for the Cyprus Regiment of the British Army. Like many young Cypriots, he had wanted to join the fight for freedom in Europe, which, once won, would surely bring their own release. Or so they had thought. His uncle’s farewell celebration had been a long night of feasting and loving, and he had been conceived.

      Uncle George never came back.

      The younger George had much to live up to. He idolized the uncle he had never known, but he was only fifteen and almost three-quarters and, instead of marching in heroic footsteps, was reduced to delivering messages and supplies.

      ‘Did you really do it with Vasso? Seriously, George.’

      ‘Course, stupid. Several times!’ George lied.

      ‘What was it like?’

      ‘Like peponia, soft melons of flesh,’ George exclaimed, gyrating his hands in demonstration. He wanted to expand but couldn’t; Vasso had taken СКАЧАТЬ