The Girl Under the Olive Tree (12 page)

It was with relief she was granted leave. The girl who had gone north in all innocence was returning to Athens a woman bloodied by battle. She arrived with only one thought on her mind: to find the deepest warmest oil-scented bath where she could try to soak away all the horrors she’d witnessed.

The city was buzzing with British troops being sent north to enforce the new borders, to show the Axis powers that Greece was not standing alone. There were boys in blue stationed at Royal Air Force bases in Tatoi and Eleusis. Once again the city was full of excitement and confidence that it had seen off the enemy for good. Yet Penny felt an outsider in all this celebration, knowing the people of Athens had no idea of the tensions in the north. If Italy had failed to conquer its neighbours would Germany come to its aid?

There was a course on theatre nursing that she must attend. In emergencies she’d been forced to give a helping hand when the hospital was short-staffed, but there were huge gaps in her knowledge. Now she knew she had the stomach for the work she felt good about learning more advanced skills for theatre surgery.

She kept asking around if anyone had seen Yolanda but no one knew anything until she met a young doctor who pointed her in the direction of a hospital ward. ‘They’ve put her in there.’

‘She’s wounded? Oh, no!’ Penny fast-walked down the corridor in panic, only to see Yolanda coming in the opposite direction with a bandaged arm in a sling.

‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Praise the Lord, you’re here, but I’ve just heard you’re injured. What happened?’ Penny greeted her.

‘Nothing but a scratch that went septic,’ Yolanda fobbed off her concern, but Penny noticed she looked more tired and drawn than usual. ‘I’ve got a week off

‘It’s more than a scratch then.’ Penny eyed her carefully. ‘Let’s go to out and celebrate your leave.’

‘I couldn’t . . . I’m broke . . .’ Yolanda hesitated. Penny guessed most of her pay was going to her parents on Crete.

‘The treat’s on me. I’ve had a windfall,’ she lied, though there were still some drachmas left in the kitty from when Papa shoved a wallet of notes into her bag before he left. She had kept this dwindling little reserve for emergencies. ‘Come on, pastries at Zonar’s and then onto the Argentina. I feel like dancing the night away. Time we had some fun.’

‘But I’ve nothing to wear and, besides, what would I tell Rabbi Israel. I’ve only just returned.’

‘What they don’t know won’t hurt them. Let’s treat ourselves. We should dress up, forget our nun’s robes and have a ball. If anyone deserves it we do.’ Penny felt she needed to decide for both of them. They’d seen so much suffering of late, she just wanted to forget it all for these few precious days.

‘Weren’t you glad of Sister McGrath’s slide show?’ Yolanda began.

‘No talking shop, I forbid it!’ Penny shouted. ‘We dance till dawn tonight.’

‘You’ve changed,’ Yolanda laughed.

‘We’ve lived with death all these months, let’s see a bit of life. Who knows where we’ll be sent next? Come on, the shops are calling me . . .’

They arrived back at Margery’s rooms laden with parcels: a dress for Yolanda and some pretty shoes for Penny, rose-scented soaps and toiletries and perfume. They lunched on
tiropita –
cheese pastries – and Sachertorte, giggling and relaxed for the first time in months.

‘Let’s try everything on again. This is so decadent,’ said Yolanda, inspecting her new outfit with delight. ‘What will Momma say to such a short dress?’ It was long-sleeved, made of navy-and-white spotted silk and gathered in at the waist.

‘You look better already,’ Penny said, noting the flush in Yolanda’s cheeks. ‘Let me change the dressing on your arm first.’ When she undid the bandage she saw how raw and blistered was the wound. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s nothing, just a burn It’s healing now.’

‘Is there a story to this?’ Penny asked, curious.

‘Not really, just a soldier crazed with fever, who brandished a hot poker and lashed out at us. He didn’t mean it, poor chap and he died later. They think it was rabies.’

The wound was deep and ugly and would leave a scar. Penny was angry that Yolanda would be branded for life by the madman.

‘We’re going out on the town tonight, Margery, don’t expect us back until the heels of our shoes are worn down with dancing. I’ve got my key.’

Margery sniffed in response, settling down for the evening with one of her beloved Agatha Christies.

The Argentina was busy, tables taken by officers and their girlfriends, but Penny was a regular from her days as a student and was seated by the bar. She recognized familiar faces from the legation, old friends who waved the young nurses over and found them chairs at their tables. The band was on fine form and the officers were soon up to dance, swirling the young women round the floor. Drinks were ordered for them, especially when the soldiers found out they’d been at the front. Everyone wanted to know how bad it was. This was not on Penny’s agenda so she suggested they find another table if they wanted to talk shop. Where had all this new-found social confidence come from? Months ago she wouldn’t have dared to come into a place like this without a man to take her arm, but things were changing, and for the better. She was recognizing a little more of her own worth in surviving the rigours of life at the front. She and Yolanda deserved time off to relax and not feel guilty. Yolanda was not so easily convinced.

‘If anyone recognizes me, I’ll be in trouble,’ Yolanda whispered. ‘This is not what single girls do in my community. I hope no one tells the Israels and they write to Momma. We don’t go out without a chaperone. I think I should go now.’

‘No, don’t. Why shouldn’t you have a life of your own? If anyone deserves a break, you do.’ Soon a procession of dashing young army and air force officers were again escorting them onto the floor. No one pestered them, but as the men got drunker they started holding the girls tighter, asking for their addresses. Soon it was time to head back to Margery’s lodgings, weary but relaxed. Yolanda was to stay over so as not to disturb the Israels.

To Penny’s surprise Margery was waiting up, a pained look on her face. ‘You’ve had a visitor,’ she announced as Penny flung off her new shoes with relief. ‘One of the BSA boys . . . a Captain Jardine.’

‘Bruce? Bruce Jardine? He’s here in Athens?’ Penny was stunned for a second. She’d been so busy, she’d not thought of Bruce for weeks.

‘He heard you were still here and wanted to catch up with you. He’s brought letters from your sister,’ Margery said, plonking a pile of envelopes on the table.

‘How long is he here? Which regiment?’ Penny felt excited that he’d looked her up after all this time, but a little deflated now she’d missed him.

‘Steady on, the young man was three sheets to the wind, but they all are, these days. He did leave a number. You can give him a call tomorrow, not now; it’s one o’clock and I need my beauty sleep.’

‘Sorry for keeping you up, you are so kind,’ said Penny, now flushed with excitement.

‘I couldn’t sleep. There’s been unsettling news on the wireless. Hitler’s massing troops in Romania. It looks as if he’s going to finish what the Eyeties couldn’t . . . He’ll be in Athens by Easter, mark my words. Time for us to pack our bags.’

‘Looks as if we’ll be on the march again then,’ Yolanda looked to Penny with concern.

‘That’s why the troops are here. If Hitler thinks the British are a walkover, he’s another think coming,’ Penny replied with a confidence she didn’t quite feel.

‘So who is Bruce Jardine?’ Yolanda quizzed, changing the subject. ‘His name had brought colour to your cheeks like rouge.’

‘Oh, someone I used to know when I was a student,’ Penny said, not wanting to go into detail about her girlish crush all those months ago. She was now a different person from the one he would think lived here with Margery.

Yolanda slept on a camp bed in the bedroom while Penny tossed and turned. Bruce had called. If only she’d stayed in she wouldn’t have missed him . . . but she’d ring and arrange to meet him somehow.

Do I really want to see him though? she pondered. Do I want to raise my hopes all over again? She must thank him for bringing post – that was only polite – but was that the only reason she was glad he’d come round? It was pointless going over her feelings. She’d think straighter in the morning. One thing was certain, Penny Georgiou had important priorities these days, and the thought of Hitler’s storm troopers marching south towards them was no comfort at all. Even so, she heard the owl hooting well into the night, and then the screech of the cock in the yard before she finally fell asleep.

The telephone, at the number Bruce had left, rang for ages until a sleepy woman’s voice replied. Penny wanted to throw down the receiver with disappointment.

‘You want Brucie? Darling,
everyone
wants Brucie . . .’ The accented voice paused to shout upstairs, ‘Where’s he gone?’ There were muffled voices, one of them a man’s.

‘Sorry, can’t help you,’ the woman told Penny. ‘They’ve all been marshalled somewhere hush-hush. Who shall I say called?’

Penny hung up without giving a response, in no mood to listen to the drawl of Bruce’s hungover mistress. Still the same Bruce, up to his old tricks with the ladies. She stomped out of the room, furious to have raised her hopes that his call was anything other than that of a polite courier, helping out Evadne.

Yolanda left early to return to the Israels, leaving behind her new dress and evidence of last night’s excursion.

Penny heard in the bakery that the Greek General Papagos wanted his best forces to remain in Albania while the British were heading north to back up forces on the Bulgarian border. But then she heard a rumour in the grocery store that it was the other way round. She knew the state of the army in the west and just how brave and tired they were in trying to defend every inch of Greek territory, despite how poorly equipped they were and short of bullets. People in Athens had no idea how dangerous this conflict was getting.

Margery came back from her office in the embassy, hinting that there were big meetings going on in the Hotel Grande Bretagne. Even the King had been seen walking through the foyer with his entourage. It was all rather fraught there, she added, and plans were being made to evacuate troops and British residents from the southern ports, should the alliance fail.

Penny prepared for her recall to service with a heavy heart.

It must be a bleak prospect to engage with the best army in the world. As they headed north, this time she knew what was awaiting them. She took time to notice the wild beauty of the hillsides, the carpets of wild flowers, reds, yellows, whites, the blossom. Villagers flung biscuits and bread into the trucks, and wine, as if this were some celebration of certain victory. Their joy did not last for long.

Raiders began serious bombing of the city and Piraeus harbour. The
Clan Fraser
, a munitions ship, exploded, destroying every ship close by and most of the harbour, with a terrible loss of life. Then through a mountain pass came the fresh troops of the German mountain divisions, breaking the Greek line. Within days Salonika fell and the Greek Second Army surrendered. Only New Zealand and British troops were left to hold the defensive line.

For Penny, it was back to the trucks ferrying the wounded south again as the news grew more worrying each day. The British were not holding out. There would be no relief from either east or west, and the morale of the divisions was flagging as they were forced to retreat over land once won at such cost. The Cretan 5th Division fought bravely at Aliakmon but the forces pounding them were overwhelming in fire power, strength and equipment.

Suddenly the nightmare of retreat began in earnest as bedraggled men headed south, strafed all the while by planes and bombs. Trucks were held up by huge craters in the roads, which took hours to fill in with dead animals and debris. Miles took days, not hours. Progress was painfully slow, the retreating soldiers bloodied, their uniforms tattered, the defeated look of exhaustion on their faces. The seriously wounded were hidden in villages or left to die where they fell for lack of men to carry them.

Penny’s team pulled aboard as many wounded as they could. Yolanda, working close by, went out with a doctor to tend the walking wounded, and sometimes they carried men on their backs to get them to shelter.

One soldier begged Penny not to chart his temperature, wanting to get up and return half-healed of his infection. ‘I’m fine now, let me go back. Those are my friends out there. How will I look their mothers in the eye if I don’t go and find them?’

They were getting used to taking out makeshift casualty stations to help men on their way, everything easy to fold up. Beds, chairs, cases of medical equipment, gas stoves and pans, all were loaded onto mules to be taken to temporary respite centres.

When they came to a river it was a matter of ropes and pulleys, persuading the animals to forge across, and Penny rode at the helm of her convoy, confident that she could manoeuvre the mules as well as any man. She pretended to be back in the hills of Scotland, among the bracken and glens. How simple and luxuriant were those long-gone days. Here, they were in constant danger from German planes spotting their stations. At first she had felt sure that no one would ignore the big Red Cross signs on their uniforms and tent roofs, but some took no notice and then it was everyone into the ditches for cover. They were treating any wounded, friend or foe, but the soldier guards found that hard to stomach after such a raid.

At night the nurses sat stony-faced, saying little. How could Greece fall so quickly?

A doctor smiled and sighed. ‘I expected to eat my Christmas dinner in Athens, and I did, but where I will eat my Easter egg, only the Good Lord knows!”

Yolanda looked sombre when she heard gathering rumours of Jews being rounded up across the borders. There was talk of them being singled out as hostages and even for execution.

While she had more reason than any of them to be worried, for all, it was a matter of one foot in front of the other when their truck broke down. Penny wondered if she would ever sit down again. She had never felt so filthy in her life, her scalp itched and her skin was flea-bitten, but there was no time for self-pity as the wounded piled in for help. When would this journey ever end?