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It was typical that he referred to his military role as ‘trailing
the puissant pike’ [...]. He didn’t mind that his consular cover
story in Heraklion fooled nobody. But his mountain life something was going to happen. It must have
changed gear: he presciently saw that the Cretan veterans of been during a lull in this racket that I saw
the old wars against the Turks would be vital to the eventual Pendlebury for the first and only time. ‘One
defence of the island. These regional kapetanios, natural chiefs man stood out from all the others that came
– like Satanas, Bandouvas and Petrakogiorgis, and many more to the cave,’ I wrote later on. I was enormously
with their sweeping moustaches and high boots – had many impressed by that splendid figure, with a rifle
virtues and some, perhaps, a few faults, but they were all born slung like a Cretan mountaineer’s, a cartridge
leaders. They were all brave, they passionately loved their belt round his middle, and armed with a
country and they recognised the same qualities in Pendlebury. leather-covered swordstick.
They trusted his judgment when he began to organise a One of his eyes, lost as a child, had been
system of defence [...] and permanently badgering the Cairo replaced by a glass one. I heard later that,
authorities for arms and ammunition. when out of his office, he used to leave it on
his table to show that he would be back soon.
When Greece and were flung back by He had come to see the Brigadier to find out
the Greek counter-attacks, the
how he and his friends could best contribute,
the probable sequel became clear and his presence, with his alternating
at once: Germany would come
seriousness and laughter, spread a feeling of
Italians to the rescue of her halted ally. optimism and spirit. It shed light in the dark
invaded The whole Wehrmacht was cave and made everything seem possible.
available and so was Germany’s
When he got up to go, [...] he [...] climbed up
vast Luftwaffe. The implications into the sunlight with a cheery wave. I can’t
were plain. Pendlebury and the remember a word he said, but one could
Cretans made guerrilla strikes on Kasos, the Dodecanesian understand why everyone trusted, revered
island 25 miles from the eastermost cape, and there was a far- and loved him.
flung caique operation on Castellorizo off the south coast of We all know [...] about the battle: the heavy
Turkey. Like all Crete, Pendlebury lamented the absence of bombing every day, followed at last by the
the 5th Cretan division, which had covered itself with glory in drone of hundreds of planes coming in
Albania, only to be left behind on the mainland. With them, over the sea in a darkening cloud, and the
and the 10,000 rifles Pendlebury longed for, he felt that the processions of troop-carriers flying so low over
island could be held forever. But, to his exasperation, the arms the ground they seemed almost at eye-level,
only came in driblets. Even so, there was hope. suddenly shedding a manycoloured stream
If the worst happened, Pendlebury was determined to stay and of parachutes. When the roar of our guns
fight on with the guerrillas until Crete was free. His stronghold broke out, many invaders were caught in the
would have been the Nidha plateau, high on the slopes of olive branches and many were killed as they
Mount Ida. It was grazed by thousands of sheep, inaccessible fell; others dropped so close to headquarters
by roads, riddled with caves – Zeus was born in one of them that they were picked off at once. Heraklion
– and it could only be reached through the key village of is a great walled Venetian city. The enemy
Krousonas (the stronghold of Pendlebury’s friend, Kapetan forced an entry through the Canea Gate, and
Satanas) and the great resistance village of Anoyia (the eyrie of after fierce fighting they were driven out by
Kapetans Stephanoyianni Dramoudanis and Mihali Xylouris). the British and Greeks with very heavy losses.
During all this time, the knowledge that the rest of Europe was This was the first astonishing appearance of
either conquered or neutral and that England and Greece were Cretan civilians, armed only with odds and
the only two countries still fighting was a great bond. ends – old men long retired and boys below
We must skip fast over the German invasion of Greece. Most military age, even women here and there –
of the British forces, which had been taken from the battle suddenly fighting by our side, all over the
in the Libyan desert to help the Greeks, got away from the island. In Heraklion the swastika flag, which
mainland with the Royal Navy’s help and the island was had briefly been run up over the harbour, was
suddenly milling with soldiers who had made it to Crete. torn down again. The wall was manned by
I was one. I was sent from Canea to Heraklion as a junior Greek and British riflemen, successful counter-
intelligence dogsbody at Brigadier Chappel’s headquarters, in attacks were launched and [...] the town and
a cave between the town and the aerodrome. the aerodrome remained firmly in our hands
The daily bombings were systematic and sinister. Obviously, until the end.

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