Moggerhanger

Chapter Ten

While on the one hand I gloated at having let Bill Straw loose on the soft underbelly of Europe, on the other I was terrified at what the international repercussions might be. You can imagine my state of trepidation while waiting for news, and going through The Times every morning, which I sent Mabel out to buy not too long after dawn. “He won’t do it,” I wailed to her. “I just don’t see how someone like him can bring such a long shot off, at least not without another murder as at Sarajevo.”

“Fiddlesticks!” Her cry went some way towards soothing my anxiety. She was more right than I was. Her lascivious glances of dumb admiration at William Straw when he was changing into decent clothes before departure told me that she trusted him absolutely, and might even be hankering after a touch of rough trade after too long enjoying, and becoming bored with — as was possible with any woman — my gentle and highborn ministrations.

Be that as it may, a missive came at last from Greece, the stamps placed neatly upside down on the quarto brown envelope. I hadn’t imagined William Straw to be familiar with Attic script, but the school he had been to must have had excellent and dedicated teachers, because he could spell and punctuate to an extent that had he been in my battalion during the War he would have been recommended for Sandhurst. His dispatch was cleanly typed, though where he had found a secretary to do it wasn’t stated. I give the document exactly as laid out, with no words doctored:

OPERATION ORDER, No. 1.

DATE: As given.

STRAWFORCE, Greece.

ADVANCEGUARD: Sgt. W. Straw, late His Majesty’s Sherwood Foresters (known among the lads as the 1st Battalion Shooter and Looters).

1. Beg to report to Major Blaskin the results of my expedition to Greece. I reached Athens according to plan, collected motor transport as arranged, and picked up as good a map of the terrain as could be obtained. Supplies of food for messing arrangements were amply available from Duty Free at London Heathrow, and the airport shop in Athens.

2. I immediately set off West and then North in a probing operation. The reconnaissance was successful in that no enemy were sighted that day. My appreciation of the situation was that I must get as far North of Athens as possible in order to give myself plenty of time to examine all viable points of interception. I don’t like driving in cities, in any case, or in the dark, either, preferring to see the enemy at a distance, before closing in.

3. A policeman in Athens waved me down, but I easily outpaced and then lost him in my powder blue Corsa snuffbox. Athens seemed to have had a bit of trouble in the War, because I saw lots of ruins on a hill. As usual the lads of the RAF did a very fair job. After skirting the bomb damage I had a right old time disentangling myself from the urban sprawl. Room for manoeuvre is more my ticket, mobile warfare much preferred.

4. Beyond Athens I ran over a chicken, a dog, a snake, and a cardboard box, in that order, but the sight of the blue sea easily made up for it. Even a soldier appreciates inspiring scenery. The Greeks are dangerous drivers, by which I mean they are very good, because in spite of their insane method of skirmishing they never touched me.

5. It was imperative that I toothcomb the region where Michael was likely to be encountered, so I did the hundred miles to Lamia in doublequick time, stopping only once to brew up some tea. I can’t give a six-figure map reference as to where Lamia is, because there’s no military grid on the map, but you’ll find it in your atlas I’m sure. I was too cautious to go beyond the place because it was getting dark. Straw may be reckless, but he doesn’t take risks.

6. I sat in a café eating bread and sausage, and studying the map. An education sergeant in the army once told us that General Stonewall Jackson in the American Civil War — up to then I’d thought he was a sculptor carving statues — said that constant attention to the map saved a lot of blood and trouble in the end. Anyway, I noticed that two roads went North from Lamia, one through mountains, and a better one by the coast. I decided to take the latter.

7. I reckoned up how many days Michael would need to reach approximately where I was. Knowing he left Milan yesterday — it don’t seem possible — the next morning he would be just inside Jugoslavia. I further calculated that after two more nightstops he would be approaching my ambush position about five in the afternoon. This gave time for me to think where he would go off the road on that day to find a quiet billet, which I knew he always liked to do. I doubted that he’d already been bumped off the road in Italy, because if the Green Toe Gang was on his track they would follow him all the way to the Athens area to find out who his contact was, then hit him over the head and take whatever look was being transferred. I’ve worked with such people now and again in the past so can read them like the Beano.

8. I pulled off the highway beyond Lamia and slept in the car. Not that you could call it sleep, because the chocolate box vehicle was like a toy. My long legs got shocking stabs of the cramp, so I put your Burberry on the ground, and in spite of stones and tree roots I slept like a baby, until tinkling goat bells played wakey-wakey at dawn. I found a café-hotel at a little seaside settlement a mile away, ordered thimbles of sweet black coffee, and a few sheets of delicious honey cake, then spruced myself up as much as could be done in the toilet. It was the sort of place Michael might put up at, but I decided to check out a few others in the area first, and made up my mind which was the most likely, then hope it would turn out to be the right one.

9. I spent that day driving between Lamia and Larissa, checking every byway from north to south, looking for any off shoots Michael might nip into if he was pursued, or if he felt too clapped out after a heavy day at the wheel to go any further. There were hardly any lanes fit for a Rolls Royce in such terrain, and I knew Michael wasn’t stupid enough to get stuck on a mule track.

10. I thought myself into the sort of mind he would be in while driving south from Salonika and maybe nodding at the wheel when he got beyond Larissa. Michael and I have done so much dodgy work together that I knew him almost as well as he knows me. In any case we were both born north of the Trent, and had the same rough life as kids.

11. I would occasionally stop the car and climb a hill or spur — your field glasses are second to none, sir, and very sharp, worth their weight in gold on a stunt like this — to observe any exit road which would draw him by its width and possible convenience. Knowing he also would have paid attention to the map made it easier for me to figure things out. Imagine trying to get into the mind of somebody who didn’t know what a map was for! I knew that the more I worked my faculties to the bone the more likely I was to be right. Didn’t we used to say in the Army, when we had to dig in under artillery fire: ‘Sweat saves blood’?

12. I have to admit that the next couple of days turned out to be a bit of a holiday for yours truly. I idled up and down that route, brewing tea every ten miles or so, without which refreshment no British soldier can be expected to retreat or advance, till I knew the area better than the back of my hand. No Green Toe Gang scum could know it nearly as well. Michael had been bred to take in landscape with his mother’s milk, so had grown up as English to the backbone as I was. He claims to be Irish, I know, but nobody can blame him for that.

13. I was so much in my element on that recce I almost wished it could go on forever, with all that fresh air and interesting scenery. At every village I amused myself by laying out a scheme of attack, as a platoon exercise. You know what I mean: mortars here, machineguns there, noting dead ground, arranging covering fire, and selecting the best avenues of approach before the lads go in with the bayonet. That sort of skill never leaves one, does it, sir? The colonel once went on bended knees for me to take a commission, but I was too well off being a sergeant.

14. I saw a young chap minding a gaggle of goats, and thought I might lure one away and strangle it. The old wire would come in handy there, but I fought off the temptation. Even so, it would have made a good supper to eat under an olive tree when the stars came out, and then leaning back to smoke one of your excellent cigars. I scrubbed the notion with tears in my eyes, because I didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself. In any case, first I’d have to get the wire around the throat of the savage guard dog that threatened to rip my turn-ups on the two or three times I got too close.

15. Sometimes I laid in the sun after my lunch, the mountains looking so cool and inviting I almost forgot why I was here. I imagined taking off on a dirt trail to explore the middle of the country. I would rent a room in a remote village, where the simple good hearted people would take me for a British soldier who had fought for them in the war. I would learn the lingo and marry a lovely young widow who ran the coffee and grog shop, and spend the rest of my days sleeping and drinking and smoking to my heart’s content, and see to her at least twice a day. I would learn to play on one of their banjos and give a song or two at weddings. You know how adaptable an English swaddie can be, sir, especially if he sniffs a bit of the old dolce fa niente. It was easy for me to get carried away, but I shook myself out of the dream and remembered my duty. I reached for the field glasses, and from a hill above the road wondered what Michael would have on his mind after the long hard slog through Europe.

16. My brainbox told me that the chances of spotting him were a bit remote, and I didn’t suppose any bookies would entertain bets on a successful interception either. But if I let my thoughts stray too far in that direction Michael would be a goner. The heart part of me was bigger than the brainbox, and just as reliable, and if I got them working together like the old pals they’d always been, and kept on keeping on, I would meet up with him right enough. Confidence is the thing, and we never lacked that, did we sir?

17. Two roads shoot off to the little place I had decided Michael was most likely to go for. They were about eight miles apart, but the first he wouldn’t dream of going into because it wasn’t signposted, and didn’t look as if the Rolls Royce would take it anyway. Therefore, in the flush of overconfidence, which I had always known to be his besetting sin, he wouldn’t care whether he bottled himself into a deadend or not. So I posted myself on a hill overlooking the turn off, thinking that if by any chance he went by there would be plenty of time for me to get in the car, tail him, and flash him down.

18. When I saw him go into the road I had staked out I gave myself a pat on the back, and laughed so loud a crow jumped out of an almond tree as if a snake was after him. Slotting the binoculars into their neat leather case, I had a long and satisfying urination over a hot rock, then ate a bar of chocolate. Michael had gone right into my net. There was no hurry. I would give him time to indulge in a shave and shower at the hotel, even a half hour snooze if that was what he craved (Oh, did I know him!) because he’d earned it for coming this far unscathed. You can understand that I was also impatient to give him a big embrace as soon as possible, but out of kindness I decided to let him look forward to a relaxed evening first. Wouldn’t he be surprised and delighted when I walked towards him with outstretched arms?

19. I gathered a few sticks, made a fire, and mashed some tea. It was only four and a half miles from me to the hotel — I’d clocked it a couple of times on the dashboard tacheo — so I could get there in a few minutes. I opened a bag of sweet cakes, savoured another cigar in the warm and balmy air, and strolled around the hillside. At the same time I kept the junction well in view. A motorbike-carrier loaded with packages and melons turned in, and a couple of taxis, then a little black hatchback.

20. I was taking a pebble out of my boots, when an ache in my stomach told me there might be less time to waste than I supposed. Something nagged me, I couldn’t think why, so I threw my tranklements into the car, and belted off, just missing a battered old Merc coming the other way along the narrow road.

21. I will now, Major Blaskin, conclude this operational report, which has been put together in a simply furnished cell, though not the type you must be thinking of, I’m glad to say. In fact it’s the only one I’ve never wanted to escape from with a hacksaw, because it’s in a remote monastery in the middle of Greece, where I decided to lay up for a day or two before driving my tinpot Corsa back to the airstrip at Athens, and boarding a plane for Blighty.

22. I had the luck to find a typewriter to do the job on. I was told that a German author had left it by mistake, and the monks — bless ’em! They were blessing me all the time, which I very much appreciated — didn’t have any use for it. So it’s come in handy for me, though the ribbon’s getting a bit worn, as you can see.

23. I’ve done my duty, sir, all fair square and above board. One of the monks has just come in with a pot of juniper tea, and if I don’t swig the lot he’ll be offended. Perhaps after you’ve heard Michael’s version of subsequent events you’ll put me in for the Military Medal, at least. Believe me when I say that he is as safe as I could make him, so I’ll now do an amen, because the bells of Hell (or Heaven — I wouldn’t know) are bonging fit to burst my head.

24. Operation Strawforce (Greece) concluded.

Signed: William Straw, Sergeant, late Sherwood Foresters.