The Angry Hills (10 page)

In a few moments the girl returned with two men. One was a giant and wore a heavy black cassock. It was almost impossible to make out his features through the brush of beard. He wore a long braid down his back and a high triangular black hat on his head.

The second man was short and stocky and bald except for a horseshoe fringe of hair. He sported an enormous, neatly waxed, handlebar mustache and wore a ballerina skirt with long white stockings banded in black around the knees. He had on a white blouse and a small cap falling away into a long tassel, and on his feet were pointed slippers with bright red pompons.

The ballerina man grinned at Mike and began jabbering in a strange Greek dialect. He wheeled about suddenly and issued a series of commands to an older woman who had just edged shyly into the doorway.

Another moment found the room filled with many men all looking at Mike with great curiosity. Then came several women carrying plates brimming with food—chicken, rice, olives, wine, a millstone-shaped loaf of bread.

The ballerina man drew a chair up next to the bed and poured himself a tall glass of wine and motioned Mike to eat.

Mike struggled to a sitting position, still speechless and staring about him, puzzled, a bit leery, mostly curious. The girl rushed to the bedside and adjusted the pillows behind his back.

Utter silence fell on the room as Mike examined the dishes before him. Everyone leaned forward. Mike’s belly rumbled with hunger but he was unable to eat more than a few bites before he felt bloated. He shook his head and shoved the plates away. A wail arose throughout the room. The ballerina man argued passionately for him to eat but Mike tried to explain with gestures that he couldn’t.

Then, the ballerina man abruptly ordered everyone but the girl from the room.

He turned to Mike and announced with much gusto in broken English, “I am Christos Yalouris, and this is my niece, from Dernica, by name—Eleftheria. My niece, Eleftheria, takes care of my aged mother in Dernica but I, Christos, personally sent for her to attend you. And what is your name?”

Mike’s hand reached up and felt the bandages binding his head. His fingers traced a large scab which ran from his forehead to his jaw. “Athens... I’ve got to get to Athens...”

Christos shook his head slowly. “You have been very sick.”

“I’m—I’m sorry.... Forgive me. My name is Jay—Jay Linden,” Mike said. “Where—where am I?”

“You are in Paleachora.”

“Paleachora?”

“Yes. Two hundred kilometers north of Athens.”

“North? But—but—I was in Southern Greece. I don’t understand?”

“You were found on the outskirts of Nauplion.”

“But Nauplion is in Southern Greece.”

Christos offered Mike some wine but he refused it.

“Many of you Englezos soldiers jumped off the prison train,” Christos said. “The people knew it would be only a matter of a day before the Germans searched the place. Most of the other British soldiers moved into the hills.”

“Go on, please.”

“Fortunately, a member of my crew happened to be visiting the house in Nauplion when you came. You were unconscious and unable to move. You were put aboard my boat. I brought you here.”

“Boat? You are a fisherman then.”

“I, Christos, am sole owner of the mill in Paleachora,” he announced with much pride. “I keep the boat for—er—trading—and other purposes.” Christos winked slyly to indicate his boat was engaged in some sort of business not generally accepted as legitimate practice by the law.

Christos waved aside the thanks Mike tried to offer. “My duty,” he said. “How do you feel? The doctor comes again in four or five days. You will rest.”

“But—but I’ve got to get to Athens.”

“We talk of that later. Come, Eleftheria, we let our friend Jay sleep.”

The next few days were pleasant and restful. A steady flow of good food helped restore Mike’s normal appetite. The assortment of aches and pains diminished a little.

Mike was grateful for the luck that brought him to Paleachora. Certainly Konrad Heilser wouldn’t be looking for him in Northern Greece. At first he worried about being discovered but he learned that many British soldiers were hiding out in the hills. The Greek villagers greeted them with open arms. In fact, they deemed it an honor to harbor an escapee. Two Britons were already being concealed in Paleachora and others who had escaped en route to the Salonika Stalag passed through daily.

The Stergiou list tormented Mike constantly as did the recollections of the past weeks. The name of Dr. Harry Thackery did not leave his mind for a moment. But it was impossible to plan a move until he was on his feet. He examined his assets. Two pistols, a roll of drachmas and a valuable friend in the impish Christos. His passing as Jay Linden, soldier from New Zealand, went unquestioned.

The girl, Eleftheria, was close at hand during the day, weaving or spinning or working in the adjoining kitchen. She was terribly shy, too shy, in fact, to indulge in conversation. But a lifted eyebrow by Mike would send her flying to comply with his merest whim. She was so submissive that he fully expected her to throw herself across the bed and cry, “Beat me, master!” Eleftheria was pleasing to watch as she sat by the loom or flitted about on chores. Mike was too ill and too indebted to Christos and far too worried about the Stergiou list to entertain any ideas about the girl. None the less, Eleftheria possessed the natural qualities that could become disturbing to a man.

During the daylight hours, Mike saw little of anyone save for Eleftheria and Christos’ lusterless old wife, Melpo. He didn’t know if Melpo could even speak.

The village priest, Father Paul, stopped by now and again for a minute’s conversation and every so often some male villager would poke his head into the room unceremoniously for a quick, “How are you feeling?”

Most of the women were of Eleftheria’s variety. Well put together and, for the most part, lovely, but all were terribly shy. Once in awhile Mike would see a girl peek through his window but any attempt at conversation would send them scurrying down the road, giggling.

Mike looked forward to the evenings. Christos would return from the mill or from his numerous activities. A table would be placed near Mike’s bed and they would share a candlelight dinner and talk for hours on end—about Christos. Other men would drift in and linger over a bottle of
krasi.
Christos’ speech was always impassioned and punctuated by the slapping of his bald dome, hand wringing and arm waving while the tips of his curled waxed mustache quivered in staccato motion. Christos was the benefactor of all mankind. The local ward heeler, village big shot and general operator of all things. Being “Englezos,” and having great understanding, Mike was brought in on many of Christos’ little schemes and deals. The host always had a dozen things working for him. Now, with a war on, his boat would be able to haul more and more pay loads and already Christos was planning how he was going to corner property in Athens in exchange for wheat, which was certain to become scarce.

As evening turned to night and the wine loosened tongues the conversation always swung around to Christos’ escapades in the whorehouses of the big cities. Then, after Christos would finish his story, each man in turn would tell of his experiences in the brothels. Mike learned that the prostitute held a position of respect in Greek culture. A wife, once wooed and wed, through family arrangement, was usually retired to the background. Her sole purpose in life was dedication to home and family. It was an accepted fact that a man could patronize the brothels whenever it suited him. The clever prostitute often found herself a husband who could provide comfort and respectability.

And when the hour grew late and the candle burned low Christos would offer his opinions on what he considered a real war. Dressed in his
funstanella,
he would pace the room and scoff at the German invaders as Johnny-come-latelies. The Bulgars, the Turks and the Italian Macaronades—these were the
real
enemies—as proven by centuries of warfare.

And Christos’ epic would become a bit more exaggerated with each telling....

All the men in his old platoon were dead, except for Christos and two comrades. An enemy horde had charged a hill which he was determined to hold. He and his comrades had hacked their way through a wall of charging Bulgarian flesh until he, Christos, stood alone—with two hundred of the enemy piled at his feet. At the close of the tale Christos’ bald pate would be bright purple intersected by protruding veins. He would be panting and sweating as he lifted a broom-handle and ran it through the guts of the last Bulgarian.

“This is the way to fight a war! Man to man!”

In Nauplion, Konrad Heilser stood on the balcony of his hotel suite overlooking the Bay of Argolis. His eyes were bloodshot and his usually slick hair was a mess. The ash trays in the suite brimmed with half-smoked cigarettes. His necktie was loosened and his shirtsleeves were rolled up.

He had made a thorough search of Nauplion and was unable to uncover a single clue in the strange disappearance of Michael Morrison. Out of sheer desperation, Zervos had been sent on a mission, based on hearsay that a fisherman had overheard a conversation about a body being placed aboard a boat a day after Morrison had jumped the prison train. The fisherman was now somewhere among the myriad islands in the Aegean.

It was a straw, but Heilser was desperate. Zervos was sent to find the fisherman.

The phone rang. Heilser entered the living room and snatched it from the hook.

“A call for you, Herr Heilser.”

“Hello, Herr Heilser?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“This is Zervos.”

“Where are you?”

“On the Isle of Kea.”

“Did you locate the man?”

“Yes, I have him in custody. He is reluctant to talk, though.”

“Does he know the American’s whereabouts?”

“He knows something—that is certain.”

“Bring him to Athens immediately. I go immediately. He will talk when I am through with him.”

“Very well. I have a boat standing by. We will be in Athens tomorrow night.”

THREE

A
T THE END OF
a week, a doctor came from Dadi, unwrapped the bandages, examined Mike’s injuries and declared him a very lucky young man.

Mike was anxious to test his legs for a day or two, then press Christos for transportation to Athens. With Eleftheria’s help he wobbled from the cottage dressed in a coarse set of peasant’s clothes. Melpo supplied him with a heavy cane. With the help of the cane and one arm around Eleftheria, he made his way from the cottage into the sunlight, through Melpo’s vegetable garden and out the gate. Mike was terribly aware of Eleftheria’s closeness, and forced himself to suppress some disturbing thoughts.

Out on the main square, he was mobbed with well-wishers. First the children came and ran off to get their parents. Mothers and daughters arrived from their cottages, and men dropped their plows and came from the fields. The square teemed with excitement.

And Michael Morrison, the cynic, the scoffer at sentiment, was deeply moved by it all. He tightened his grip on Eleftheria’s shoulder and smiled and she made no attempt to hide her pride as a nurse.

Another two days passed and Mike felt his strength returning. He increased the distance of his walks with Eleftheria, who was beginning to lose some of her shyness.

The village of Paleachora lay peacefully on the slope of a hill within sight of the island-dotted Aegean Sea. It was very much like any other village in the province. A narrow crooked dirt road or two which wove in and among white-washed, thatched-roofed little cottages.

The Church of the Prophet Elias stood apart on a small knoll on which herds of goats and sheep grazed quietly under the watchful eyes of barefooted young shepherdesses.

Pine forests covered the hills, and the landscape was a peaceful tracery of vineyards, wheat fields and olive groves.

The quiet was occasionally broken by the thump of a crude wooden plow on the earth or the outcry of an infant lying in the shade of a tree while his mother worked in a nearby field or the grinding of the mill wheel or a bleating from the flock.

The village of Paleachora was at the northern end of the province of Larissa on the endless eastern coast of Greece.

Mike and Eleftheria would walk hand in hand past the Church of the Prophet Elias to a stream which flowed past a clearing thick with pine needles. In the peace and serenity of the pastoral scene he often found it difficult to concentrate on his Greek lessons. She would throw her head back and laugh at his efforts to pronounce the S and the Z with proper softness. But Eleftheria never laughed unless they were alone and out of sight of the curious eyes of the villagers. Mike would suddenly find himself patting her olive cheek, or, when he put his arm about her waist, he noticed that her childlike face acquired a sleepy feminine look. They would be silent for long periods. Then Mike would damn himself for being lulled by the loveliness of this girl and for letting his mind stray from his mission. After a third visit to the forest he knew he would have to make a decision.

He had little occasion to say more than “hello” to the two British escapees in Paleachora. Mike studiously avoided the transients who hid out in the church. He did get trapped into several conversations with an Australian who called himself Bluey. Bluey stayed with a family just a few cottages away from Christos’. His one claim to fame was a constant gas pressure on his stomach. Most of his sentences were punctuated by belching. Bluey, aside from repeating the story of his escape from the Stalag at Corinth, did reveal something of interest to Mike. It seemed that many wealthy Greek families in Athens had provided boats for British soldiers to escape to North Africa. Mike filed it as an ace in the hole should anything go wrong in his attempt to contact Dr. Harry Thackery.

For the most part, however, Bluey spent his time denouncing the English....

“Leaves us stranded in this ruddy place, they did. Where in ’ell is the bloody Royal Navy, I asks you, Jay? Nothin’ but one bloody Dunkirk after another...