Officers and Gentlemen

  Fido raised his head over the wall and called: ‘Guy, Guy. Who are they?’

  Guy went on talking and presently returned, smiling.

  ‘Italian prisoners,’ he explained. ‘Not a happy party. They surrendered to the Greeks weeks ago on the Albanian frontier. Since then they’ve been marched from place to place until they managed to infiltrate into the retreat and got here. Now they’ve been told to join up with the Germans and they’re full of indignation that we won’t transport them to Egypt. They’ve got a very fierce doctor in charge who says it’s contrary to international convention to turn unwounded prisoners loose until the end of hostilities. What’s more, he has an idea that the island is full of furious Australians who will murder them if they catch them. He was demanding an armed escort.’

  Fido was not amused. He merely said:

  ‘I don’t know of any international convention which prescribes that.’

  In a year or two of war ‘Liberation’ would acquire a nasty meaning. This was Guy’s first meeting with its modern use.

  The procession shuffled dismally past and was still in sight when the first aeroplane of the day roared down on them. Some stood their ground and waved their white flags; others scattered. These were the wiser. The German fired a line of bullets through them; several fell; the remainder scattered for cover as the airman returned and fired again.

  ‘The Australians will murder them if they start attracting attention,’ said Guy.

  Then the German roared away to seek other targets. The irate doctor returned to the road and examined the fallen. He shouted for help and presently two Italians and an Englishman joined him. Together they moved the wounded and dying into the shade. The white flags lay unregarded in the dust.

  Guy sat down beside Fido.

  ‘We came a long way last night.’

  ‘Twelve miles, perhaps. I ought to find the GOC and report.’

  ‘Report what? Don’t you think we’d better know what’s really happening?’

  ‘How can we?’

  ‘I can go and find out.’

  ‘Yes. Did you eat all your rations yesterday? I did.’

  ‘I too. What’s more, I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Perhaps there might be something in that village we passed, eggs or something. I believe I heard a cock crowing once. Why not take your servant and Sergeant Smiley and send them back with anything you find.’

  ‘I’d sooner go alone.’

  Fido did not find it in his heart to order a foraging party.

  Guy left him in command of a clerk, three signallers and the intelligence section. There seemed to be no orthodox tactical disposal for this force which was scattered and asleep. Fido gazed about him. At a short distance the ground fell away to a gully in which lay a stagnant pool. Two or three men – not his – were bathing their feet there. Fido joined them and dabbled in the night-cool stagnant water.

  ‘I shouldn’t drink that,’ he said to one of the men who was lapping near him.

  ‘Got to, chum. Threw my bottle away yesterday when it was empty. How far is it now?’

  ‘To Sphakia? Not more than twenty miles, I think.’

  ‘That’s not so bad.’

  ‘There’s a biggish climb ahead.’

  The man examined his boots carefully.

  ‘I think they’ll hold out,’ he said. ‘I can if they do.’

  Fido let his feet dry. He threw away his socks and put on a clean pair which he had kept in his pack. He then examined his boots; nothing wrong with them; they would last for weeks more; but would Fido? He felt dizzy and inert. Every movement required forethought, decision and effort. He looked about him and saw quite close a culvert which ran under the road and in time of rain carried the stream of which this puddle was a relic. It was wide, clean, dry now and keenly inviting. Carrying his boots, Fido padded to the mouth on his clean socks. He could see at the far end a deliciously remote, framed picture of a green and dun valley; between him and it everything was dark and empty. Fido crept in. He went half-way until both bright landscapes were the same size. He unbuckled his equipment and put it beside him. He found the curve of the drain comfortable to his aching back; like a hunted fox, like an air marshal under a billiard-table, he crouched in torpor.

  Nothing disturbed him. The Germans were busy that day landing reinforcements and searching for rescue-ships. There were no bombs or bullets here. All that was left of Hookforce rolled down the road overhead, but Fido did not hear. No sound penetrated to his kennel and in the silence two deep needs gnawed at him – food and orders. He must have both or perish. The day wore on. Towards evening an intolerable restlessness possessed him; hoping to stay his hunger, he lit his last cigarette and smoked it, slowly, greedily sucking until the glowing stub began to burn the tips of his fingers. Then he took one last deep breath and, as he did so, the smoke touched some delicate nerve of his diaphragm and he began to hiccup. The spasms tortured him in his cramped position; he tried lying full length; finally he crawled into the open. For all his agitation he moved laboriously and crazily like a man photographed in ‘slow motion’; thus he climbed to the road and sat beside it on the wall. Men were on the move again, trudging past, some with their eyes in the dust, some fixed on the mountains ahead. It was the moment of evening when the milky wisp of moon became sharp and luminous. Fido saw none of this; each regular hiccup took him by surprise and was at once forgotten; between hiccups his mind was dull and empty, his eyes dazzled and fogged. there was a continuous faint shrilling in his ears as though fr0llJ distant grasshoppers.

  Presently there was an intrusion from the exterior world. A car approached. It came very slowly, and when Fido stood in the road, waving, it stopped. It was a small shabby sports-car, once doubtless the pride of some gilded Cretan youth. Sprawled in the back, upheld by a kneeling orderly, as though in gruesome parody of a death scene from grand opera, lay a dusty and bloody New Zealand officer. In front sat a New Zealand Brigadier and a young officer driving, both haggard. The Brigadier opened his eyes and said:

  ‘Drive on. Can’t stop.’

  ‘I’ve got to get to Headquarters,’ said Fido.

  ‘No room. My Brigade Major’s in a bad way. Must get him to a dressing-station.’

  ‘I’m a Brigade Major. Hookforce. I’ve an urgent personal report for the GOC.’

  The Brigadier blinked and squinted and collected his powers of thought.

  ‘Hookforce?’ he said. ‘Hookforce. You’re finding the rearguard?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I know the GOC wants my report at once.’

  ‘That makes a difference,’ said the Brigadier. ‘I reckon that gives you priority. Hop out, Giles; I’m sorry but you’ll have to walk from here.’

  The haggard young officer said nothing. He looked desperate. He climbed out and the Brigadier moved into his place at the wheel. He leaned against the warm stone wall and watched the car drive slowly towards the mountains.

  For a time no one spoke except the wounded man who babbled in delirium. Fatigue had brought the Brigadier to a condition resembling senility, in which comatose periods alternated with moments of sharp vexation. For the moment his effort of decision had exhausted him. One tiny patch in his mind remained alive, and with this he steered, braked, changed gear. The road ran zigzag and the darkness deepened.

  Fido as though in bed between the opening of the door and the drawing of the curtains recalled the nightmare march of the preceding night and measured each slow mile in terms of blisters and sweat and hunger and thirst and lassitude. He was moving effortlessly in the right direction, passing the ragged men who had gone by as he sat on the wall. Every minute he hiccuped.

  Suddenly the Brigadier said: ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘How can I drive when you keep making that infernal noise?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  The other Brigade Major kept saying: ‘The returns aren’t in from the units. Why aren’t the returns in?’

  The Brigadier fell silent
again. His mind seemed to gape and close like the mouth of a goldfish. Presently he said:

  ‘Bloody good rear-guard. We got caught with our trousers down all right. Before we’d even had breakfast there were fellows shooting at us with a damned mortar. That’s how Charlie copped it. Where was your bloody rear-guard? What’s happening? Put me in the picture.’

  Fido roused himself from his happy trance. He said whatever came to mind.

  ‘The situation is fluid,’ he said; he hiccuped and continued. ‘Out-flanked. Infiltrated. Patrol activity. Probing. Break through in strength. Element of surprise. Coordinated withdrawal.’

  The Brigadier was not listening.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘so that’s the long and short of it?’

  Two miles of dreamland. Then: ‘What exactly are you going to report to the General?’

  ‘Sitrep,’ said Fido simply. ‘Every hour at the hour; orders,’ he continued, ‘reporting for orders. Information. Intention. Method,’ he suddenly shouted.

  ‘Quite correct,’ said the Brigadier.’ Quite correct.’

  He was leaning heavily on the steering-wheel, staring into the darkness. They were climbing steeply now, back and forward along the face of the precipice, with groups of shadowy men straggling everywhere. The Brigadier enjoyed the peculiar immunity from accident that is granted to sleep-walkers.

  It seemed to Fido that the moment of unpleasantness was past, but when at length the Brigadier spoke it was with unmistakable malevolence.

  ‘Get out, bastard,’ he said.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Who in hell d’you think you are, taking Giles’s place? Giles is worth six of you. Get out and walk, bastard.’

  ‘Me, sir?’

  ‘You are a bastard, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Fido’s hiccups ceased suddenly.

  ‘Oh.’ The Brigadier seemed disconcerted by this denial. ‘My mistake. Sorry. Still, you can bloody well get out and walk, just the same – bastard.’

  But he did not stop and soon he began to whistle through his teeth. Fido dozed. Thus they came to the head of the pass when they were suddenly jolted into consciousness. They had collided with something large and black and solid.

  ‘What the hell?’ said the Brigadier.

  They had not been travelling fast enough to incur much damage, The horn at least was working and the Brigadier pierced the fastness with its ignoble note.

  ‘Aw, pipe down,’ came in feeble protest from the darkness.

  ‘What the devil have they stopped for? Go and move them on.’

  Fido climbed out and felt his way round the obstruction. It was an empty lorry. Another stood in front of it and beyond that another. Fido groped forward, finding himself one of an ant-line of toiling men who were climbing off the road into the rugged mountain-side. He discerned that the cliff was down on one side and on the other the road had fallen away into the valley leaving a single steep, precarious mass of broken rock. Beyond it the road led down. An officer was rolling stones down the precipice, calling: ‘I want men for a working-party. We’ve got to get this clear. I want volunteers.’

  No one heeded him.

  Fido stopped and said,’ What’s this? A bomb?’

  ‘Sappers. Blew the road without orders and cleared out. I’ll have ’em court-martialled if it’s the last thing I do. If I have to wait the whole bloody war in prison to do it. I’ll get their names. Lend a hand, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘You’ll never do it,’ said Fido.

  ‘I must. There’s five thousand men got to come through.’

  ‘I’ll report it,’ said Fido. ‘I’m on my way to headquarters now. I’ll see the General hears about it personally.’

  ‘You’d do better to stay and help.’

  ‘Must push on,’ said Fido.

  He pushed on over the landslide, down the road to the plain, to the plain which led to the sea, and as he pushed he left behind him all memory of the frantic, forlorn road-mender, of the irascible New Zealand Brigadier and the dying Major. His mind curled up and slept and the swing of his body carried him from one numb foot to the other, one after the other, on and down towards the sea.

  Creforce HQ was a line of caves. Fido found them soon after midnight. Good order prevailed there and military discipline; a sentry challenged him and having heard his account of himself directed him where to go. Fido paused on the goat-track like a drunkard composing himself before entering sober company. Now that his weary quest was at length accomplished it was borne in on him that he had nothing to report, nothing to ask, no reason to be there at all. He had been led by instinct, nosing out his master. He brought no propitiatory rat. He was a bad dog; he had been off on his own, rolling in something nasty. He wanted to fawn and lick the correcting hand.

  This would not do. Gradually Fido’s slumbrous mind came alive with humanity as the Cretan hillsides had done when the last aeroplane departed.

  The mouths of the caves had been roughly walled with loose stones and screens of blankets propped against them. He peered into the first and found a section of signallers round a storm lantern and a wireless set, vainly calling Cairo. The next was in darkness. Fido flashed his torch and saw half a dozen sleeping men and beyond them on a natural shelf of rock a tin of familiar aspect. Cautiously and, it seemed to him, very courageously, Fido stepped across and stole six biscuits – all that remained. He ate them luxuriously in the star-light and wiped the crumbs from his lips. Then he entered the presence of the GOC.

  The roof of the cave was too low to allow Fido to stand to attention. He struck his head painfully, then bent and saluted the dust before his feet.

  The headmen of the defeated tribe huddled on their haunches like chimps in a zoo. The paramount-chief seemed to recognize Fido.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Everything going well?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Fido desperately.

  ‘They’ll be able to take off their full thousand tonight? The check points are functioning satisfactorily? Priorities being observed as laid down, eh?’

  ‘I’ve come from Hookforce, sir.’

  ‘Oh. I thought you were from the beach. I want a report from the beach.’

  The BGS said: ‘We got a sitrep from the Halberdiers three hours ago. As you know, they are holding the line at Babali Inn. They fall back through you before dawn. Your men all in position?’,

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Fido lied.

  ‘Good. The navy landed stores tonight. They’re dumped at the approaches to Sphakia. The DQMG will issue chits for you to draw on them. There ought to be plenty to see you through until the Germans have taken over the job of feeding you.’

  ‘But aren’t we being taken off, sir?’

  ‘No,’ said the General. ‘No. I’m afraid that won’t be possible. The navy are doing what they can, doing magnificently. Someone’s got to stay behind and cover the final withdrawal. Hookforce were last on, so I’m afraid you’re the last off. Sorry, but there it is.’

  This was not a people among whom toothless elders were held in honour. Strong yellow fangs gnawed the human sacrifice.

  One of the staff said: ‘Are you all right for money?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Some of you may be able to make your own ways in small parties to Alexandria. Buy boats along the coast. “Caiques” they call them. You’ll need drachmas.’ He opened a suitcase and revealed what might have been the spoils of a bank robbery. ‘Help yourself.’

  Fido took two great bundles of 1,000-drachma notes.

  ‘Remember,’ continued the staff officer, ‘wherever the enemy shows his head, give him a bloody nose.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Sure you have enough drachmas?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, sir.’

  ‘Well, good luck.’

  ‘Good luck. Good luck. Good luck,’ echoed the headmen as Fido saluted his toes and made his way into the open air.

  As he passed the sentry he left the world of good order and military dis
cipline and was on his own in the wilderness. Somewhere not far away, in easy walking distance, lay the sea and the navy, he had only to keep moving downhill. His torch was dying. He lit his footsteps with occasional flickers, provoking protests from the surrounding scrub. ‘Put that bloody light out.’

  He plunged on and down.

  ‘Put that bloody light out.’

  Suddenly quite near him there was a rifle shot. He heard the crack and smack and whistling ricochet among the rocks behind him. He dropped his torch and began feebly to trot. He lost the path and stumbled from boulder to boulder until treading on something which seemed smooth and round and solid in the starlight he found himself in the top of a tree which grew twenty feet below. Scattering Greek currency among the leaves, he subsided quite gently from branch to branch and when he reached ground continued to roll over and over, down and down, caressed and momentarily stayed by bushes until at length he came to rest as though borne there by a benevolent Zephyr of classical myth, in a soft, dark, sweet-smelling, empty place where the only sound was the music of falling water. And there for a time his descent ended. Out of sight, out of hearing, the crowded boats put out from the beach; the men-o’-war sailed away and Fido slept.

  Sage and thyme, marjoram and dittany and myrtle grew all about Fido’s mossy bed and, as the sun mounted over the tufted Precipice, quite overcame the sour sweat of his fear.

  The spring had been embellished, consecrated and christianized, the water glittered and bubbled through two man-made basins and above it an arch had been cut in the natural rock. Above the arch, in a flat panel, the head of a saint, faded and flaked, was still discernible.

  Fido awoke in this Arcadian vale to find standing near him and gazing fiercely down a figure culled straight from some ferocious folk-tale. His bearing was patriarchal, his costume, to Fido’s eyes, phantasmagoric – a goat-skin jacket, a crimson sash stuck full of antique weapons, trousers in the style of Abdul the Damned, leather puttees, bare feet. He carried a crooked staff.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Fido. ‘I am English, an ally. I fight the Germans. I am hungry.’